Protecting Your People, Property and Facility from Cyberattacks
Technology brings major benefits to facility services. At the same time, our increasing reliance on tech can make for new vulnerabilities in a moment when cyberattacks are on the increase. A 2024 report from Panaseer found that cybersecurity failures are costing businesses $30B annually. From silent data breaches to system-wide shutdowns, facility managers are facing the potential for real and catastrophic impacts.
In order to make the most of emerging technology and also protect our facilities and the people who rely on them, we must incorporate leading, expert-informed cybersecurity practices as part of a robust safety planning strategy.
The New Frontier in Safety Planning
Sound cybersecurity practices share some themes and strategies with effective safety planning—beginning with the role of experts. Just as leaders like UG2 have incorporated safety into our operations at every level, making it a part of everyone’s job, and expanding our leadership team to include an executive-level manager of safety and operational excellence, cybersecurity requires guidance from those in the know, and buy-in from across the company.
Conversations about cybersecurity practices should be at the heart of your onboarding process and should remain a routine feature of training sessions, meetings, and performance reviews.
UG2 continuously collaborates with our bench of experts and our customers to this end. We not only tune into, adapt and incorporate best practices, we also continuously revamp our policies and procedures to reflect the best advice and to tailor our approach to customers’ needs.
Five Areas of Focus for Cybersecurity
While issues and recommended responses are constantly evolving, today’s experts home in on certain areas when advising facility services providers on cybersecurity.
They include:
- Limiting access, authenticating users and requiring best practices like multi-factor authentication. Controlling systems access is the first line of defense against cyberattacks and system failures.
- Issuing regular software and systems updates. Because software systems face continuous prodding for flaws and weaknesses, even the slightest delay to an update can open a facility up to a harmful attack.
- Implementing network segmentation. This practice involves setting up firewalls between systems, so that a security breakdown on one area doesn’t rapidly expand facility wide.
- Prioritizing training and refreshers for every employee on maintaining secure systems. UG2 is uniquely positioned to accomplish this thanks to our industry-leading Training and Innovation Lab.
- Conducting regular security audits and acting on vulnerabilities. Safety audits must occur on a regular basis, and facilities must use the information gleaned from those audits to update their plans and protocols.
The Importance of Cross-Training and Communication
A combination of following best practices, industry expertise and immediate communication enables leaders to leverage AI to detect unusual network activity and act on it immediately to protect the digital safety of building systems facility-wide. Partnering with an expert provider for integrated facility services means teams can be cross trained on one another’s challenges, vulnerabilities and strategies, and can communicate issues instantly.
Building up our cyber resilience—our ability to withstand, respond to, and recover from cyberattacks and support our customers in doing the same—is a core priority for UG2. Contact us today if you have questions about protecting your systems and securing your business operations, today and in the future.