The holiday season is filled with twinkling lights, festive parties, colorfully wrapped presents… and, unfortunately, increased security threats to your building. These tips will help you keep your property as safe as possible—during the holidays and all year round.
Expect a lot of extra people coming in and out of your building during the holidays — like catering staff, visitors in for an end-of-year meeting, or holiday party guests. “You get used to going into your own building and have a good sense of who should and shouldn’t be there,” says Stephen Harrup, Head of Customer Service for Kastle Systems in Washington, D.C. “If you see someone who shouldn’t be there or whose behavior isn’t right, stop them or notify security.”
Lock up any valuables when you’re away from the building, particularly during the holidays. It’s not just wallets, purses and smartphones that are easy targets for theft: During the holiday seasons, many people shop for gifts on their lunch break and leave shopping bags and expensive items lying around.
The holiday season is a time of giving, but you can be generous without letting your guard down. As the fundraising and donation requests start pouring in, do some research about whomever is reaching out to you and verify that you’re giving to legitimate organizations.
Even if you have an access control system that requires a card or fob to enter your building, you need to have a process in place to manage that access in case, say, for example, a user loses their card or leaves the company permanently. “One of the ways key administrators can tighten security is to view the daily key activity of users for the past 90 days,” Harrup said. “If the 90-day report shows inactive keys that cannot be located, they should be researched and potentially revoked.” Again, with so many
people coming in and going out during the holidays, regular monitoring and “cleanup” of the list of people who have access are essential for keeping your building safe.
For more information, contact your Kastle Account Manager, email [email protected] or visit www.kastle.com.