Survey Shows Security Convergence Popular but Elusive

A new survey says there are still a lot of barriers to integrating physical security measures like video surveillance and access control with traditional IT security systems. Will companies ever achieve security convergence?

In an article on the Enterprise Systems website, James E. Powell says the study by Honeywell, titled “Enterprise Threat Management and Security Convergence: A Benchmarking Study,” found that many organizations aren’t sure how to get the best results from convergence.

The survey found that most respondents say there is an increased  interaction between their security and IT functions, with nearly two-thirds (63 percent) reporting their security and IT organizations “had a formal coordination mechanism,” and 10 percent reporting that the two functions are run as a single entity.

“Nearly three in four respondents (almost 73 percent) believe vulnerabilities in either physical or IT security can lead to a breach in the other system, which could explain why 91 percent of companies reported an increase in their organization’s security investment,” Powell says.

But who is responsible for organizing responses to a coordinated physical-IT security attack? The study found that 34 percent of respondents said there isn’t a single internal contact, while 27 percent said it was the director of security, 14 percent identified a single chief security officer and 14 percent said it was their crisis management group.
 
Finally, Powell says the definition of convergence wasn’t uniform among respondents; answers varied from using IT backbones for security systems to automating manual processes through an IT system.