Every human being needs regular exercise to keep him/her fit. Similarly, every security system needs periodic maintenance to function properly. Simply put, security system maintenance is essential.
Security system maintenance involves testing the functionality, rectify the issues, and updating software that increases durability. Criminals/bad guys always look for weak points in the security systems to steal valuable assets and cause harm. If you ignore the security systems maintenance, the worst thing you wanted to avoid will happen.
Hackers can compromise your security system, fails to detect intrusion attempts, and fails to record when the crime occurs.
Video Surveillance/CCTV Security Systems:
We have witnessed countless examples of security systems that are not being appropriately maintained.
Many instances, we found that customers are shocked to know that their video surveillance/CCTV security systems did not record the scene of the crime.
Our investigation revealed that the customers installed video surveillance/CCTV security systems a year ago. But they never bothered to get the maintenance done after that. Before the actual crime happened, the security system got malfunctioning and did not record the footage.
In some other instances, the business leaders were shocked to know that the theft insurance was not settled by their insurer due to the security system not maintained.
Even the police/ your security team cannot recover the assets as there is no evidence.
The losses caused by the criminals/bad guys in terms of stealing critical data and valuable assets resulted in more than 100x of the maintenance cost to the business.
Just in case of video surveillance/CCTV security systems, if you do not carry out periodic maintenance, there could be many things that could affect the functionality of the system. For example,
- CCTV cameras are not recording,
- hard disk failure,
- the date & time of CCTV footage is showing wrong that could mislead an investigation,
- cables wear and tear or broken, or loose cabling resulted in blurry CCTV footage,
- Motion sensor malfunctioning. In general, businesses are using motion-based CCTV footage recording if the motion sensor is faulty, it does not record the crime. Motion sensors need periodic checks to ensure their functionality
Access Control Systems:
In many instances, the businesses get the Access Control Systems are installed for their facilities
But the maintenance part was not taken seriously. It is like to install and forget.
Our Physical security audits revealed that many such instances in which the Access Control systems, once installed, were never got updated to save money. The outdated versions are prone to systems hacks.
What worst could happen to your assets if you have an outdated Access control System that can be controlled by criminals easily? And the only way to prevent system hacks or getting compromised is through periodic security system maintenance.
To the gloom of the business leaders, the cost-cutting on security systems can cost their whole business.
Intrusion Detection Systems:
Organizations often focus on automating security systems to reduce the guarding staff and cost. One of the vital security systems that are considered in this stage is intrusion alarm systems.
What worst could it happen if your IDS fail to detect the intrusion of the criminals? Or your security response team did not attend assuming false alarms?
False alarms are one of the frustrating things of many security response staff.
False alarms could affect the quality of security team response. As they perceive the real alarm as false due to the high number of false alarms.
And the only way to prevent false alarms and improve security team response is through periodic security system maintenance.
Conclusion:
Security system maintenance is a must to protect your assets.
Security system maintenance will:
- Ensures that your security systems are working to their optimum performance.
- Prevent your security system from being comprised or hacked
- Increase the life of the equipment that prevents the replacement of costly equipment that actually saves money in the life cycle.
- Avoid wastage of resource of time and
- Avoid the downtime of critical security equipment
- Increase the motivation of security response team that improve the quality of your security response
- From a business standpoint, it could even reduce the insurance premiums and ensure your security team supports your business continuity during crises.
- Finally, it assures the quality of services to your clients and employees by actually protect the assets.
The security systems that are not maintained adequately, actually cost huge fortunes to their owners.
Please don’t do it for the sake of record-keeping. Do it because it protects your assets and gives you and your stakeholders peace of mind.
