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Learn how security management professionals are addressing operational efficiency, threat intelligence, and risk assessment amidst growing geopolitical challenges.
A recent report from the International Security Management Association (ISMA) reveals that 60 percent of security management professionals prioritize operational efficiency and optimization. Close behind, 56 percent highlighted the need to improve threat intelligence generation and analysis, while improving risk assessment is the third most important priority.
These priorities are closely linked to broader business initiatives aimed at addressing a variety of factors such as geopolitical conditions, business continuity, crisis management, operational growth, supply chain challenges and technological advancements.
Additionally, security teams are faced with the daunting task of supporting more initiatives, sometimes with limited resources. Despite these limitations, they must provide reliable, comprehensive, and timely security intelligence to support decision makers. By focusing on operational efficiency, intelligence gathering, and risk assessments, security and intelligence teams can address these top priorities.
Leveling up: Practical tips for achieving big priorities
Priority #1: Improve operational efficiency and optimization
Operational efficiency is crucial for any function, particularly in security, where budgets are tight and staff limited. Ways security teams can achieve greater operational efficiency include:
- Fostering team agility: Security teams must quickly identify and prioritize critical events for their organization to create focus. This requires maintaining a credible, high-quality source list for important areas and being able to shift gears to seamlessly focus on different geographies and threat types. A major challenge is the wide range and complexity of threats, with broad impacts that require teams to quickly shift priorities. Security teams must be able to seamlessly shift workloads, transfer projects between shifts, and reorder priorities seamlessly to meet new demands without hiccups.
- Take advantage of the help of external experts: Using intelligence partners in security matters It can provide increased bandwidth and location-specific information, enhancing the capabilities of the in-house team without the need for additional staff. This external support helps validate information and avoid relying on biased sources, ensuring more accurate and confident decision-making.
- Planning for the domino effect: Geopolitical threats often have a far-reaching impact on an organization, from impacts on employees and global operations to interconnected consequences such as supply chain disruptions or reputational risks. With their unique insights, security professionals must collaborate closely with other departments, sharing their expertise to support strategic planning and ensure comprehensive preparedness for the broad implications of threats.
Priority #2: Improve information gathering in a complex world
Technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and natural language processing (NLP) have revolutionized information gathering. Leveraging these technologies can help drive efficiency and improve information gathering by:
- Data acquisition and evaluation: These technologies can streamline data collection and analysis, allowing analysts to focus on verifying events and assessing trends. And advancing data modeling enables security and intelligence teams to move from reactive to proactive strategies.
- How to make alerts more effective: Customizing alert systems based on the specific needs of the organization prevents teams from being overwhelmed by irrelevant notifications and ensures that valuable information is not overlooked.
- Event verification: With the rise of misinformation, Checking events Through local sources and multiple trusted channels, it is crucial to provide accurate information to decision makers.
Priority #3: Develop risk assessments
Effective risk assessment involves timely communication of emerging threats to decision makers. Key tactics include:
- Confirming risk appetite: Involving leaders in defining acceptable risk levels helps establish a foundation for security activities, guiding team approach and response strategies.
- Set security parameters: Defining risk levels and identifying when activities become risks enables appropriate notifications and actions, ensuring leadership is informed about significant threats.
- Creating a communications plan: Developing a clear reporting strategy ensures that leaders receive relevant updates during regular operations and crises. Regular, concise reporting helps leaders understand the impact of events and the effectiveness of security measures.
Addressing priorities to deliver greater value
As the geopolitical risk landscape evolvessecurity and intelligence operations Teams are faced with increasing complexity. They must protect more assets across multiple regions, each with unique threats and risk tolerances. Establishing strong foundational processes and leveraging innovative technologies can eliminate key pain points and improve security team performance.
When security teams prioritize operational efficiency, intelligence gathering, and risk assessments, organizations can strengthen their physical security and risk intelligence efforts, enabling smarter, faster, and more accurate responses to threats.
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