What is physical security, and why is it important?
Physical security is an important part of security that must be done properly in order to keep all information secure, as you know, network, information and software security are important, but they can be proceeded when you are sure of physical security and there is no disruption in this field.

What is physical security?
Physical security is the protection of hardware and software components , networks, and data from physical conditions and events that may cause serious harm to an organization, in other words, physical security includes all tasks that is done to protect information, hardware, and software from possible problems like stealing, etc., to achieve this security, it is necessary to take steps that we will mention them in the following.
Physical security can be created in a variety of ways, the choice of which depends on the information that you want to protect, as well as the problems that are to be prevented from occurring.
Physical Threats:
- Treats that may occur naturally which will damage the information that is to be protected, including floods, storms, tsunamis, volcanoes, earthquakes, etc.
- Disruption of natural conditions, for example, a sudden rise in temperature or high humidity, which you should be able to provide physical security for existing information in some way in this situation, there are other conditions that may happen, such as lightning, heavy rain, and so on.
- People may want to destroy existing information on purpose, through destruction, theft, fire, etc., all of which is necessary to deal with before they occur, so even if they happen, there are no worries in this field, because the solutions were thought before, as a result they cannot do much damage to the available information, sometimes a person may cause some events inadvertently which may be the reason of irreparable damage, for example, imagine that someone is working on his/her system and suddenly spills the coffee on it, which there are some tasks to do in a way that by implementing them you can protect your information from such incidents, as we have mentioned above, the importance of information also affects the steps that are taken to protect them, in the following, we will mention each of these events and the actions that can be done in order to prevent the loss of information when they occur.
What steps can be taken in general to build physical security?
1. Pay attention to the importance of a safe building:
Imagine that you have information that is so valuable, and you need to keep this information safe from any unexpected event, for achieving your goal you must do the following steps to make a building safe .
- A safe building must have a high level of safety against fire or any other kind of incident, for this purpose, you must use some special equipment for the building which includes some properties like being fireproof because of its ability to minimize damage in this case.
- Entrances and exits should be limited to make the process of controlling easier, as a result, they can be easily protected by security personnel, another important point that should be considered is controlling windows, which should be blocked.
- If you feel any small changes in the entrances to the building or room that contains important information, you should change the locks and even the people who protect them.
- A safe building should have an alarm, so that, it informs you in case of any abnormality, as a result you can create more physical security.
- A safe building should have an automatic fire extinguishing system to be able to extinguish the fire which may be intentionally caused by people, or due to incorrect electrification, and as you know, water can cause more damage to the computer system and destroy all of the information, so alternative methods should be used instead of water to provide the best possible physical security.
- In order for events to happen as little as possible, such as pouring coffee and the things like that, you should make it into a law that people are not allowed to drink, eat, smoke, etc., after entering such buildings and rooms, so that you should make every effort to maintain physical security and protect information and systems.
2. Separate public systems from the ones that contain more important information:
- You should separate the systems depending on the importance of each, and apply different physical security to keep them safe.
- The location of the systems should be chosen based on the available information, for example, systems that contain sensitive and important information should be located in a place where it is protected, so that no one can reach it or try to abuse it due to the fact that there are lots of people who are trying to protect the information as much as possible.
- Keep all important information about the equipment in a safe place, for instance the equipment code, so that you can look for the equipment when you need it or if an accident happens.
- If you need to repair the systems, you may need someone who is specialized in this field, who should be chosen according to the information you have in the system, and you have to remind him to follow all the necessary rules.
3. Steps to be taken to create physical security against theft:
- Equipment that contains information should be marked in such a way that you can easily identify it, as a result, when the thief decides to sell the equipment, he/she cannot sell the available equipment at a high price.
- In addition to the specific markings you make on the system, you should also place some marks inside the system secretly, so that you can prove that the system belongs to you through the presence of such markings in the system.
- Limit the access to the system by people as much as you can, and never allow people to access the system easily and try to have a control over everything that occurs around the system.
- Place the system in the safest possible place and if people are allowed to use the device at your discretion, monitor their activity and do not allow them to be alone with the system for a long time.
- If all your important information is stored in small devices such as laptops, you should be more careful, because they can be easily carried, so you should try to do your best to be able to create as much physical security as possible.
4. Control power supplies:
- The power supplies that systems need them must be properly distributed, so that all systems can receive the electricity they need without disrupting the performance of the resources.
- You should always consider a resource as a backup, so that it can be a good alternative to the current source, and you can use it in a case when an unexpected event happens to the main source.
- Secure existing power supplies against accidents that are likely to occur.
5. Prevent the dissemination of information in the system:
- As mentioned in the safe building section, you have to place the system where there are lots of people who have the duty of monitoring it.
- Monitor devices such as scanners, copiers, etc., so that no one can abuse them in order to have a negative effect on physical security .
- Do not put the confidential information that you intend to delete in the regular trash, because it is not safe, so that you should intend to destroy it completely as soon as possible.
6. Get help from CCTV cameras:
- All the information you have as well as your systems can be controlled by placing CCTV cameras, nowadays, it is also possible to check all your systems through your mobile phone, and you can be notified in a case when any other user tries to log into your system, by a message which will be sent to you to take the necessary security measures, as a result you will take control of the system again and protect your information in the best possible way.

Last word:
In general, physical security is an issue that is of a great importance these days, you must try different ways to secure the information according to the kind of information that you intend to protect it, in this article, we have mentioned a number of ways to establish physical security that each one needs more attention, and note that if your information is too important, you should be sure to get help from experts in this field to provide the physical security of the site in order to protect your information in the best possible way.
Source: https://www.dotnek.com/Blog/Security/what-is-physical-security-and-why-is-it-impor