Find news and information for the executive corporate security director, CSO, facility manager and assets protection manager on issues of policy, products, incidents, risk management, threat assessments and preparedness.
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56 Security Dealer & Integrator / www.SecurityInfoWatch.com April 2017 America's Fastest Growing Security Dealers and Systems Integrators The FIRE Team GC&E; goes beyond develop- ing continuity of operations plans by providing customers its a Fast Incident Response and Evaluation (FIRE) Team – which consists of personnel with the technical expertise and experience to quickly assess and restore critical voice, data, and video systems following a man- made or natural disaster. e idea is to better sup- port customers in the event of an emergency. e FIRE Team helps customers determine the scope of an incident, the cause, and risks to business continu- ity and functions. e team deploys quickly to conduct an assessment of the situation and assist in essential service restoration efforts. "e results of the assessment provide customers with a gap analysis and recommendations for immediate mitiga- tion actions, prioritization for restoration and capabilities required to fully restore information technology, electronic security systems, and telecommunications systems, includ- ing cybersecurity-related services," O'Sullivan says. Based on customer-approved recommendations from the FIRE Team, GC&E; will deploy a Communications Infra- structure Restoration and Recovery (CIRR) Team, which is comprised of proficient, experienced and certified engineers, technicians, and equipment operators capable of rapid and full restoration of essential services and other priorities des- ignated in the customer's disaster recovery plan. "In the case of cybersecurity incidents, the FIRE Team leverages the information assurance and cybersecurity capability (via recently acquired) Shield IS," O'Sullivan says, noting that those experts assist the customer in any inves- tigation to include data gathering, system log collection or augmenting forensic requirements. Expertise Creates Obstacles O'Sullivan sees a couple of major issues facing the indus- try. ey are interrelated items that, if deployed properly and simultaneously, can create a major opportunity, he says. ose challenges are: 1. Successful integration of new system components and equipment into a customer's heterogeneous network; and 2. Ensuring the company's technical professionals have the experience, expertise, certifications, and system-specific training and understanding to successfully start a new system or integrate new hardware and soware into an existing one. "With the constant evolution of technology, it is almost impossible to successfully do this without experiencing some level of technical issues," O'Sullivan says. His approach is to address as many of the system inte- gration variables as possible to minimize implementation risk. "We provide a team of qualified project managers and technical professionals who collectively have the necessary expertise, certifications and manufacturer-specific train- ing needed to perform the work," he explains. e goal is to test and engineer out as many potential performance issues as possible during the design phase. Next, they burn in all equipment, configure, then test the system on a VLAN before deploying the new equipment on a customer's physi- cal security network." e idea, he continues, is to have all the necessary resources – technical documents, lessons learned, trouble- shooting guides, tier 2/3 support, etc. – readily available to quickly assess, troubleshoot and correct any issues. Assembling a Team "Don't ever be afraid to invest in your most important com- pany asset – your employees," O'Sullivan advises. Back in its formative years, GC&E; recruited personnel from Information Technology and electronic security sys- tems integrators. ey also would look at Managed Service Providers (MSP) companies for recruits. at has changed. The GC&E; team hosted many of its clients at its first annual Converged Security Summit in March 2017.