David J Brooks

The Future of Security

The future of security will be considered as desired outcomes in the near-, mid-, and long-term durations for the protection of assets in the community. The discussion on the future of security will be presented as postulates in such topics as security science as a developing discipline, increasing legislation and state control, greater professionalism, amalgamation of domains of security such as information technology and physical security, security management security intelligence, and security technology.

Corporate Security and the Stratum of Security Management

Security is unpredictable, encompassing multidimensional heterogeneous occupations, skills, and knowledge (Brooks, 2010). The security domain encompasses many parts across its broad spectrum of practice, such as national security, public security, and private security to name only a few. Such diversity makes it difficult to provide a single encompassing definition for these many parts, as definition is dependent on applied context. One such context is corporate security.

Concept of Security

Security is multidimensional; nevertheless, the concept of security can be defined when a practice domain or context has been articulated. Security practice areas encompass many domains, such as the law, military, public security, and homeland security, to private security. With so many practice areas, alignment with the nature of security requires a broad approach considering international systems, security of nation-states, security of groups, and the security of individuals. In addition, security has to be considered from an objective, subjective, and symbolic perspective. Such duality in nature and the diversity of practice areas allows many theories and ideas to support a definition of security, from Maslows hierarchy of human needs to the management of risk. One such definition is security science, which is an emerging academic discipline that brings together many concepts into a structured body of knowledge. Security science, at its most simplistic, includes security management, security principles, the built environment, and security risk management. This chapter addresses all of these.

Engineering Principles in the Protection of Assets

Security mitigation strategies are being designed, installed and operated in the protection of a diverse range of assets including people, information and physical buildings or sites. Some of these mitigation strategies are informed by risk and are instigated to address a particular threat or to reduce a known vulnerability. Nevertheless, many of these mitigation strategies are put into place with little regard for the greater system, being the organization and/or the security system. Such an approach reduces the ability of security to be effective, a significant issue as security has the capacity to bear multiple meanings (Smith and Brooks, 2013: 6) that result in differing views of what needs to be achieved when providing security.

Informing Security Through Cultural Cognition: The Influence of Cultural Bias on Operational Security

Cultural bias will influence risk perceptions and may breed “security complacency,” resulting in the decay of risk mitigation efficacy. Cultural Cognition theory provides a methodology to define how people perceive risks in a grid/group typology. In this study, the cultural perceptions of Healthcare professionals to access control measures were investigated. Collected data were analyzed for significant differences and presented on spatial maps. The results demonstrated correlation between cultural worldviews and perceptions of security risks, indicating that respondents had selected their risk perceptions according to their cultural adherence. Such understanding leads to improved risk management and reduced decay of mitigation strategies.

Organisational Resilience: understanding and identifying the essential concepts

Increasing political turmoil across many regions has increased concerns amongst business, social and governmental circles over the ability of organisations to anticipate and respond positively to disruptions. Organisations are spending increased sums of money to raise levels of governance and security protocols, under the term resilience. Nevertheless, term organisational resilience is vague, and the term itself implies multi-disciplined and diverse strategies and tactics, requiring a diversity of skills and knowledge that reaches beyond security and governance alone. The resilience domain is still developing; however, early embodiments of organisational resilience, originating in the United Kingdom and the United States, appear to be rebranding of business continuity management strategies, put together as a ‘resilience processes’ or ‘resilience systems’. More recently ‘resilience management systems’, claiming to deliver benefits akin to those that the International Standards Organisation 9001 gave the Quality Assurance discipline have begun to appear. Nevertheless, there is a constant absence of a clearly defined and researched set of essential concepts that make up the theoretical structure of Organisational Resilience. It is argued that Organisational Resilience is both a top-down culture (value, leadership) and bottom-up, delivered by a number of functional processes such as risk management, governance, interdependencies, security management, situational awareness and business continuity. However, validation of these elements is required and is currently underway.

The Australian security continuum: National and corporate security gaps from a surveillance language perspective

This chapter presents the concept of surveillance as embedded into the Australian security continuum, arguing there are still significant and challenging gaps in surveillance capabilities and ultimately security. To demonstrate such a security continuum, along with its gaps in efficacy, this chapter draws on variations in the language of surveillance (or concept) to highlight a disconnection across cultural discourses and ultimately states of security. The language of surveillance provides the opportunity to highlight the changing views, needs and applications for the many security continuum actors in the surveillance discourse.

A study to develop a consensual map of security expert knowledge structure

Security education at the tertiary level is still in its infancy, with limited consensual agreement on content requirement. The security industry is diverse and multi-disciplined, with practitioners originating from many disciplines. But security experts have a rich knowledge structure, although there has had limited research to map this knowledge structure. This limited mapping reduces the ability of tertiary educators to provide industry focused teaching and learning. The study investigated and critiqued international tertiary undergraduate security courses (N=104). Supported by both industrial and academic security experts, further analysis reduced the number of courses for content analysis (N=7). Course content was analysed and security concepts extracted. Concept extraction utilised linguistic inquiry and word count (LIWC) text and content analysis. Linguistic analysis categorised the more utilised security concepts, supported by subordinate concepts. The study presented a number of significant findings. According to the study, a large majority of the critiqued security courses did not effectively represent organisational or corporate security. A table of security categories (N=14) was presented and included security technology. The study appeared to indicate that security education should include all fourteen knowledge categories. A list of subordinate security concepts (N=2001) was also produced, with security technology (N=226) presenting primary technologies

Intrusion Detection Systems in the Protection of Assets

Intrusion detection systems were once the domain of governments and high-value commercial premises (Gilbertson, 2005: 499). However, over time these systems have become a protection norm in both domestic and commercial premises, driven by a significant reduction in their cost due to microelectronics, a greater ability of the user to pay and an increasing perceived need for greater security. Such a need is driven in part by burglary, ‘a high-volume crime that impacts upon the general public and, particularly, on those who are victimised’ (Mawby, 2007). As the Australian Institute of Criminology states, ‘household burglary is one of the most widespread crimes in Australia’ (2011). As a result, intrusion detection systems have become far more common in our built environment, as a primary method for the protection of people, information and assets.

Integrated Identification Technology

The management of integrated ID security technology is an important function for organizations and national infrastructure facilities. The protection of people, information, and materials is crucial for national security to be achieved. The management of the technology for detection, recognition, and identification is an essential process in the determination of the security plan for the protection of these assets. The application of access control and CCTV to a facilitys security barriers is a structural design concept for the security of facilities. The concept of authorization of people to gain access to zones within an organization is the overriding principle for detection, recognition, and identification. These processes need to be managed to determine the authorization status of individuals, both within and external to an organization.