I have been in the security industry long enough to see several trends come (and some go — who remembers barium ferrite cards?). Usually these trends are positives, no matter how bumpy the ride or how long they take to actually arrive (analytics, anyone?). But one of the biggest recent technology trends may just have a bigger downside than an upside.

When I first “returned” to the security industry full time after taking almost a decade away and freelancing, primarily about access control, one of my first industry events I attended was PSA TEC in 2015, where Bill Bozeman gathered all of us security industry journalists in a small conference room to impress upon us the critical nature of the burgeoning cybersecurity threat to the industry and the lack of knowledge and preparation on the part of most security integrators.

In the past six years the industry has come a long way in its understanding of both the threat of cybersecurity and the opportunity to create services around it. But despite how far we have come, many experts agree the industry is still behind. Cybersecurity can be like trying to fix a leaky boat while sailing in deep waters in a storm — and trying to sell the leak repair kit to others at the same time.

With data breaches increasing all the time, a worldwide pandemic that drove many to work from their homes and the rapid technology advancement that has experts estimating that today’s 39.5 billion IoT devices will double in the next five years, cybersecurity is an issue that isn’t going away anytime soon.

In this month’s cover story, Managing Editor Courtney Wolfe takes an in-depth look at the issue of cybersecurity in the security industry, from why it is so tricky, to what is being done now, to the outlook for the future.
While the news is not quite as dire as the recent report about global warming, it is more critical than ever to be on top of this issue, lest we get a similar warning someday.

“Security leaders and associations have been begging physical security professionals to take cybersecurity seriously for years,” Wolfe writes. “Now, if you haven’t already started educating yourself on best practices, you need to start now — before it’s too late.”