Security Thought Leadership: in conversation with Martin Gill

The word ‘Darknet’ is closely associated with a range of criminal activities, and the security risks to business are stark. The secret world the dark web provides has provided an ideal environment for offenders to exchange ideas, and trade illegal goods as diverse as drugs and guns, buy information such as the financial details of people, and to hire offenders to carry out crimes including kidnapp...

100th Episode In this webinar we speak to K who has been a career criminal. He started when he was young, went through youth custody centres, survived the ‘short, sharp, shock’ (which he did not think was tough enough) and many periods of imprisonment (not always for crimes he committed), but the rewards were too high to give up crime, the opportunities too multiple, the ease of committing offence...

Much security is procedurally driven. This type of approach can often be optimised using automation, e.g. at 9:00 the front door is unlocked; in the event of fire, all doors are unlocked. By building on simple basic premises, it is becoming possible to create complex policies that address situations which, up until now, are often left to frontline workers. For example, the detection of a group gat...

The pandemic has brought into focus the challenges posed by keeping people safe and secure when they are out on business, not just when travelling overseas but also when they are required to attend people’s homes or other workplaces. Technology can help but in what ways? What are the risks in implying people are safe because they have an App or a piece of equipment? And what happens when employees...

Clearly the protection of the national infrastructure, in its various forms, is a key requirement of any country. Yet over the last year we have heard relatively little about threats and responses, so what has been happening? How, if at all, have threats changed during the Pandemic and what about the response? In what ways do cultural differences between countries play a role in how responses are...

As we ‘return to work’, what will we return to? In many cases, we can expect that workplaces will be transformed with communal areas eliminated or repurposed, while workspaces are separated and enlarged. Some colleagues may never reappear in person. What does all of this mean for those charged with securing workplaces and operations, both in terms of physical security and data/network security? In...

Sustainability has risen dramatically quickly as a key point of focus for organisational hierarchies. The drivers have come from several sources. Certainly, investors are prioritising this issue, often requiring firm commitments to meet ambitious targets. Other drivers are concerns about public image and the knock-on consequences for marketability and the implicit dangers of making a wrong move. S...

There is something obvious about stating that converging technologies is to the benefit of the business. In a previous webinar we examined some of the challenges that ESRM faces, here we specifically look at the role of people, specifically how critical soft skills are in making a converged approach work. There has been a lack of attention to a blueprint as to how humans might best optimise effect...

Sexism, put simply, is prejudice or discrimination (typically) based on a person’s sex or gender. One United Nations report has noted that sexism is “widespread and prevalent in all sectors and all societies.” Research in the security sector has confirmed that women suffer from different forms of sexism, be that of behaviour, attitudes and language to give but three examples. It is a sector that i...

On previous webinars we have heard about the disruptions caused to supply chains, principally because of Covid-19 but also other events. The security implications have been highlighted not least because this is an area where security is intrinsically linked to business operations (a feature other areas seek to replicate) and so responding effectively and speedily is key. But what has the experienc...

We all understand the benefits which include: the elevation of security to a professional standing; providing a professional development journey; facilitating a measure of certainty to regulators; incentivising others to develop. But do current accreditations achieve these laudable aims? And what about the pitfalls? After all, not all certification programs are created equal, so how can interested...

Previous webinars have highlighted the benefits of a diverse workforce, these are a given, but strategies to achieving them have received less coverage. Most companies still lack representation from a wide range of ages, genders, races, ethnicities, and sexual orientations. A primary reason is the difficulty of building a culture of true diversity and inclusion. In a recent benchmarking survey the...

How competent are frontline security officers (in some countries referred to as guards)? It has long been noted that security officers are the face of the whole security sector and the reputation they garner has a knock-on effect and is directly linked to perception of the broader private and corporate security sector. We know they undertake many tasks, and are often the first to respond to incide...

Drone technology has come a long way and is still evolving, by 2025 It is anticipated the US drone industry will create more than a million jobs. The benefits are considerable: security surveillance; search and rescue missions; assisting in disaster management, especially in difficult to reach places. At the same time they can be used to breach people’s civil rights. Criminals are attaching camera...

In the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing, many countries operate mandatory reporting requirements for suspicious activity or transactions (known as SARs or STRs) which are identified by certain institutions in the regulated sector. The value of these reports is extensive, resulting in databases with a rich source of financial intelligence available to law enforcement. This int...

There has long been a debate about the relative status of different personnel responsible for different parts of security. This is crystallised in discussions about the relative influence of cyber/information security leads against physical security leads. Put simply some argue that cyber risks are prominent on the corporate risk agenda and that places the CISO in a more elevated position, while o...

We don’t always recognise the plight of victims; we rectify that in this webinar. We speak to two victims of duped into transferring money into a fraudster’s account. How did it happen? Victims of financial crimes are often looked upon differently in that they typically receive less post incident support. They have traditionally been viewed as less deserving because they are often seen to have con...

Counterfeiting along with copyright infringements, is big business, it is extremely lucrative for criminals, the EU alone estimates an annual cost of €50 billion. It takes place across sectors, it is international and perhaps most worryingly it is driven by demand. Of course, it is illegal, more specifically it is used to fund organised crime; it supports child exploitation; it can create serious...

The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners estimates that some three and half trillion pounds is lost through staff fraud/theft. The impacts on staff morale, internal trust, corporate reputation, not to say finances are amongst the impacts felt. Dishonesty amongst staff takes many forms, from petty fiddling at work to large scale theft and fraud. It includes those at the lower levels of an organ...

There is now a wealth of evidence that security has not always enjoyed the best public image and indeed still faces challenges. There is a sense in which the ‘guns, guards, gates’ image pervades, especially amongst the public. A recent study found that most people end up working in security by chance; it is rarely a career of first choice. This provides further evidence, if any were needed, that s...

We have heard how the world of manufacturing and distribution has been disrupted over the last year or so. The pandemic rendered some goods/parts difficult to obtain, made it difficult for some employees to work; some supply chains to operate. Meanwhile political upheaval, including Brexit in Europe, has disrupted supply chains. Some tastes have changed, some needs are different. But how have secu...

Worldwide societies are adapting to the experiences of the pandemic. We have learnt in previous webinars about the ways in which society has had to adjust to restrictions and the role security has played. But what now? Is there an opportunity to build on the experiences of the last year or so, or has that world gone and we are back to where we were? What changes will last into the post pandemic wo...

At present there is no legal requirement in most countries for a company to report a fraud. This is in contrast to money laundering, where there is a duty to raise a suspicious activity report (SAR) should money laundering be suspected. The widespread nature of fraud and its severe impacts raises the issue of whether the reporting of fraud should also be made mandatory, meaning that shareholders,...

There are many different types of radicalisation although in general terms we tend to identify it with conducting criminal acts of direct action to support some type of protest campaign, and there is often a link to terrorism. There are also different stages of the radicalisation process, each of which provide an opportunity to intervene to stop or halt progression to the next and ultimately to a...

Building on previous webinars that have looked at different aspects of equality, diversity and inclusion, this one focusses on what needs to improve. This is a broad topic, there are many issues that merit consideration here although the security sector has not been good at discussing them all equally, just for example: age, disability, gender (reassignment), marriage and other types of partnershi...