For government entities, security is a paramount concern. There are three major elements: physical, life safety, and cybersecurity. These protect physical assets, personnel’s health and safety, and digital assets, respectively. Although they are often treated as separate functions, the interplay between them is significant. Therefore, you need an alarm monitoring system that integrates physical, life, and cybersecurity safety.

The Current State of Security Integration

Most organizations currently have a decentralized model of managing security. This includes separate buying and control centers for physical, life safety, and cybersecurity. Depending on the organization, functions can be even more decentralized. For example, fire alarms may be handled completely separately from intrusion alarms.

Furthermore, a lot of organizations have legacy systems that lack advanced features that could save time, money, and effort. However, upgrading from a legacy system can be challenging and costly without the right migration plan.

However, security threats don’t care how your organization’s security is setup. For example, protecting digital assets requires both cybersecurity and physical security. Furthermore, a fire has implications for protecting human life, physical and digital assets. In other words, non-integrated security may be inadequate.

What Integrated Security Would Look Like

A more integrated approach would help to bring all three spheres of security together under a singular system. For example, if your organization needs fire, entry, environmental, and cybersecurity alarms, these could all be managed by a central alarm monitoring integration system. This system can provide dispatch capabilities for all types of threats. This can allow for faster and more organized responses, especially for security threats that may affect multiple spheres.

In this arrangement, security is considered holistically. The different types of security are brought together under the singular banner of protecting the organization from threats to its personnel and assets. This perspective can allow for efficiencies and synergy between different security functions.

Advantages of Integrating Your Systems

When you bring together all your security functions, there are financial and operations benefits. With the right setup, these are a few of the advantages you may enjoy:

• Improved Cost Efficiency: Integrating security means that you can reduce redundancy. For example, you don’t need to have dispatching procedures and resources for physical, life safety, and cybersecurity. Instead, they can be handled by the same unit with consistent processes.
• Reduced Gaps: One of the most likely causes of security gaps is disparity and inconsistency between multiple units. Bringing them together under a single system means that you can minimize the gaps in your security procedures.
• Faster Response Times: Centralized dispatching can typically respond more quickly, especially to complex threats. There is no need for ad hoc coordination between physical, life safety, and cybersecurity teams. Instead, their responses are already planned as being coordinated.
• More Representative of Modern Needs: Today’s world is more complex and interconnected than ever before. Our digital lives are almost entirely integrated with the rest of our lives, especially in the workplace. An integrated security mindset is more representative of the realities of modern life and work.

Harness the Power of an Alarm Monitoring Integration System

Using Security Information Systems’ Alarm Center, you can integrate your security efforts under a single monitoring and dispatching system. We have a UL classification and other certifications that help us to work with government agencies, including those dealing with highly confidential contracts. We already work with major agencies including the DOD, DEA, FBI, and more.

We can help you integrate your physical, life safety, and cybersecurity needs. By working with SIS, you can realize all the benefits described above. Call us at 407–345–1550 or request a free demo to learn more.