How I Rob Banks

Chapter 2330 Cameras

Understanding the environment that you are trying to protect is vital. Without an extensive understanding of how security will fit in the environment, you risk making it ineffective or, worse, making it work against you.

I was once tasked with breaking into a government building. This building was not in the UK, but unfortunately, I was! Therefore, I was unable to do any recon work myself before the actual break-in. However, there was a ray of hope: a work colleague had been at that site a few weeks earlier. Despite them having no physical security experience, I felt I could offer some guidance about what to look for, and they could report back to me so I could plan accordingly.

Here is the report I got back from them:

1. There are loads of doors, too many to count, maybe 20 or so with no guards. They all look open to me.
2. I don't think I saw any cameras. Maybe a couple—I don't really remember.
3. There was a security guard near the main entrance, but it's pretty open. You can walk in and get a badge and go in through the barriers.
4. It looks pretty open; I could wander anywhere I needed.

You can probably already guess that everything in this report was wrong. Once I turned up in the UK, I took a quick look myself, and wow—the building was a fortress.

There were many doors, but all of them were emergency exits with no way of being opened from the outside. I found out later that there were 330 cameras around and in the building. The main entrance was guarded by ...