When IT executives discuss security, it often centres on defence against cyber attacks. However, cybersecurity is just part of the equation. Physical security – keeping criminals from accessing servers in person – is also essential.
A truly secure data centre should be designed and built to withstand everything from corporate espionage, terrorism, natural disasters, or even thieves trying to make some easy money.
Hundreds of thousands of UK Vodafone customers lost service after switch equipment was stolen from one of their data centres. Thieves broke into the company’s exchange in Basingstoke by knocking down a door.
A spokesperson remarked that “we had a break-in at one of our facilities which resulted in damage to equipment. This means that some customers may have experienced a temporary loss of voice, SMS and internet services. We are working quickly to restore these back to normal as soon as we can.”
There is a well paid black market for IT hardware. Thieves are targeting specific brands of equipment and are well aware of what they are looking for. Another robbery at a Verizon Business’ data centre in North London saw £4million worth of hardware stolen.
Both of these cases show that a lack of data centre security can incur huge upfront costs but also downtime and loss of business.
Of course, loss of hardware is a awful outcome, however, it can be replaced. An even more pressing result is the loss of servers holding sensitive information.
For example, a server holding a customer database containing data, such as credit details, would be ripe picking for thieves.
The loss of this type of data can expose businesses to litigation and fines for being unable to adhere to data protection laws and regulations. Furthermore, it opens up the door for fraud and identity theft of customers and employees.
It is next to impossible to retrieve that data once it has been copied onto new servers and sold. Ensuring you have a secure data centre prior to an attack is crucial.
At Warrior Doors we have years of experience securing sites of critical infrastructure and have installed our high security doors on data centres, as well as protecting our clients in both the corporate and tech world.
For data centre security standards, we usually recommend one of our high security doors certified to LPS 1175 SR3 or LPS 1175 SR4. To read more about our certified products click here.
For data centres, we also advise a full stainless-steel door which helps to create a low key external appearance. Reducing the amount of glazing around your data centre greatly limits the risk of attack.
Do you have a special project within physical data centre security that you would like to discuss with us? Please call our team today on 0121 706 8400 for a confidential conversation.
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Data Centre Security Standards Link
