Introduction
Physical security is essential to globalization and the continuity of information infrastructure. Online banking, e-mails, among others store private information that is critical to people’s survival. This information needs to be safeguarded to enhance customer confidence and mitigate online theft and hacking. This paper will discuss the physical security controls that most web hosting and business continuity providers offer to their customers as well as provide examples of such providers along with their products to potential customers. In addition, the paper will try to evaluate these control measures (Stewart & Chapple, 2008, p. 23.
Physical security
Physical security is a term used to describe the course of actions taken to deny unauthorized access to information, building, resource, facility, among others; and the controls that should be undertaken to design structures that would oppose any unreceptive acts. Therefore, physical security does not concern online materials only, but also the safety of data and the facilities they are stored in.
Physical security controls that most Web hosting and business continuity providers offer to customers
It is known that not a single physical security measure can achieve the objective of securing all information. They are usually applied in layers so as to provide effective protection to customers. Web hosting and business continuity providers offer a variety of physical security benefits to their customers, as well as potential customers. Among these include the use of security measures like proximity cards as well as biometric security methods such as voice, fingerprint, and face recognition, among others. In most cases, they employ the collocation method to improve service to customers. Their backup systems and facilities as well as layered protection systems employed to safeguard customer data enhance information security and customer confidence. Providers that employ collocation usually implement CCTV facilities to enhance physical security to customers, this benefits customers’ information security. Other benefits that web hosting providers offer to customers are continuous network scanning, which includes malware and spam scans. They also offer business verification to customers along with very high-security storage for customer data. In addition, they offer certificate displays on customers’ websites as well as support services (Stewart & Chapple, 2008, p. 23.
Research of two or three Web hosting and/or business continuity providers (via the Internet) to document the physical security benefits they offer to potential customers
All web hosting and business continuity providers offer various physical security benefits to customers. These benefits enable the customers to safeguard their data and information for the continuity of their businesses or activities. The following web hosting and business continuity providers offer benefits to customers as described below (Jarre, 2011, p. 1).
IBM Business Continuity
Business continuity providers aim to achieve customer satisfaction, improved efficiency, and risk reduction measures, among others, to ensure the sustainability of their competitiveness. In the IBM business continuity program, they offer such benefits as leveraging business processes given their experience in disaster recovery; this helps customers to fill the loopholes that may compromise physical security. IBM assists clients in providing structures for protecting critical data, this they do by helping the clients to identify and design plans to protect such critical data. IBM has disaster recovery services that are carefully designed with the objective of helping customers to respond constructively and quickly to disruptive occurrences. Moreover, they offer exceptional crisis management services to customers that enable the best recovery response. They also offer infrastructure repair as well as counseling to customers whenever necessary (Jarre, 2011, p. 1).
Ipage.com (Web Hosting)
ipage is one of the most highly ranked web hosting providers in the world. It is based in the United States and offer several benefits to customers. Such benefits include marketing design, support and security suites, among others. The Security suite entails provision for business verification, display of certificate on the customer’s site, data security, continuous scanning of the network as well as spam and malware scanning. These benefits enhance customer satisfaction as they help secure their data (iPage, 2011, p.1).
Importance of physical security
Data storage is very important in the modern age, this is because such data may be used for reference purposes or be linked to private and confidential information belonging to a customer or an entity. They may also contain information critical to the safety of an individual, community, organization, or a country. Physical security is therefore very critical in restricting unauthorized access to information and theft. Outsourcing such services has the advantage of giving us peace of mind concerning security of our information and diverting attention from our offices, which could be targeted by other people interested in the same information (Jarre, 2011, p. 1).
When internet access is secure, our data security is assured too. This is because such information contains PIN numbers, credit card numbers, online banking IDs, among others, which can be hacked by intruders. This helps in ensuring safety as we’ll as reducing the risk of exposure. Physical security controls are therefore inevitable in our lives; we need them to execute and safeguard information (Stewart & Chapple, 2008, p. 23).
Conclusion
Physical security control is important to every sector of life; this is because it safeguards the very needs of that sector. Customers require security to reduce exposure to risks. They also require physical security to safeguard their properties. This cannot happen when structures are not in place to provide it. Online transactions are always risky, and therefore potential customers need to evaluate physical security benefits offered by web hosting and business continuity providers before signing up (Jarre, 2011, p. 1).
Reference List
iPage: Web Hosting, Unix Hosting, E-mail, Web Design. (2011). iPage.com. Web.
Jarre, P. (2011). Business Continuity Solutions. SecurityStockWatch.com. Web.
Stewart, J. M., & Chapple, T. M. (Ed). (2008). CISSP: Certified Information Systems Security Professional Study Guide. Indianapolis, Indiana: Wiley Publishing, Inc.