The Cyber Security Handbook – Prepare for, respond to and recover from cyber attacks

CHAPTER 9: PHYSICAL THREATS

Physical threats are an often-neglected aspect of cyber security, yet they can affect organisations every bit as much as technological threats. Cyber and information security must incorporate physical security to be truly effective – it is no good protecting sensitive data with an array of technological controls if someone can simply walk in the building and take it. An attacker might also want to gain physical access to your offices to, for example, install a keylogger or another type of hardware.

9.1 Physical entry threats

A common way for attackers to gain entry is tailgating. Tailgating is a social engineering technique used to gain access to secure buildings and areas by playing off people’s innate need to be ...