John Daniels Demonstrates Value Of Monitoring Social Media Within Physical Security Programs

In recent memory, social media has been utilized by active shooters and bombers who aim their efforts at public places, lone threats who foreshadow their intentions online. Targeting public spaces like schools, malls, movie theaters and public speaking engagements, these individuals, in many instances, post their promises of violence to various social media websites beforehand.

On January 8, 2011, Jared Lee Loughner killed six people and injured thirteen, including U.S. representative Gabrielle Giffords, in Tucson, Arizona. Later, after the tragic shooting, news media reported that police discovered more than one hundred disturbing posts typed up in 2010, from the Earth Empires Massive Multiplayer Online game site's forum. They also uncovered a few disturbing YouTube videos that Loughner submitted prior to the attack.

Although the majority of social media posts hardly constitute a looming danger, there are those such as Loughner's that continuously fall through the cracks, unnoticed until the shocking events are reported and the investigations commence, at which point the irreparable damage is already done.

Enterprises need to monitor social media to catch these warning signs and act before the unthinkable happens to them or their customers.

Former Security Director of the National Basketball Association (NBA), John Daniels is now the President of Daniels Risk Management Service, a strategic security consulting firm that offers security risk management, crisis management, physical security assessments, business continuity and training services.

Knowing the importance of such preventative measures, he has shared a few pivotal reasons as to why companies must astutely observe social media in their physical security program endeavors.

Early Spotting Of Security Risks

Social media monitoring enables companies to quickly identify direct security risks, threats that originate both internally and externally. People openly communicating scare tactics online to an organization or individual executive would represent a clear-cut example of this. John Daniels states that social media monitoring allows security to more easily keep an eye on external events which could, conceivably, impact a company's operations. Their insight into the broader details of concern would also be enhanced, giving them a better idea of what is occurring and how they can respond. Riots, civil unrest and protests are worth monitoring, while specific groups of interest can be tracked too.

Corporate security specialists need to be on the look-out and aware of: physical threats against the organization and its facilities or property, personal threats towards employees, employee risks, information security problems, unauthorized use of corporate social media accounts, release of physical security measures, photographs of secure and confidential facilities, and legal pitfalls.

Advancements In Social Technology

At one juncture, corporate security branches could only monitor social media by performing keyword searches, highlighting posts that mentioned the company, its brands or key executives. From there, much to their chagrin, they would be forced to comb through all of those online references and confirm if any stood out as potential security risks.

Now, image recognition technology, such as Sysomos Gaze, acts as an automatic detector, singling out social media images that contain corporate logos or other trademark objects. John Daniels explains that an advancement of this sort can help security identify individuals who are sharing photographs of specific facilities or identification cards, no tags or keywords necessary.

New intelligence always precedes fresh obstacles to perfect it, so security specialists will have to be methodical in their approaches of properly executing social media monitoring.

Each company will be alert to its own unique risk factors depending on their business, location, and public presence. For example, a large oil company in a developing nation will have different considerations than a small professional services business that strictly operates in North America.

Despite these various circumstances for the companies, the one universal truth is that all organizations can benefit from social media monitoring, if they treat its capabilities earnestly and apply meticulous techniques to harness its power.

Next Step

By realizing what viable risks are capable of creating a significant, negative effect on your company, John Daniels claims that you are now obliged to conjure up ideal response procedures. Social media monitoring might have got your company looking in the right direction, yet it was just the halfway marker, because you still must defeat the threat. While your protective measures are the primary resources for a solution, you can follow up with additional steps: abusive or threatening content can be flagged, possibly removed when forwarded up to the appropriate channels (repeat offenders could encounter a complete account deletion); internal issues that involve employees being directly responsible for creating a risk can be brought to the attention of the human resources or legal department; extreme, verified threats are to be passed on to law enforcement agencies, professionals that can subdue the element of endangerment.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or management of EconoTimes.