Holiday Security Precautions

The holidays are often hectic and filled with family plans, shopping and trips or vacations. During the holidays many people let their guard down as it is a magical time of year. But predators do not take time off

The following are ways we can help protect our homes when we are away on the holidays.

Holiday safety Precaution for Homes

  • Install a home security system there is a 60% chance of bugler's walking away from your home if they can identify a home security system. Two burglars consider the chances of them being exposed hence the need to leave and settle for homes without proper security system. Security can help install the right security system for your home and you can monitor activities weeding and around your home why you are away on vacation.
  •  Get safe please to keep your items: some buglers don't need to break into your home before they can cart away your items while you are away. A package is going to arrive for you. It won't be dropped off at your doorstep especially in this day and time of online shopping. It has become a recent occurrence for burglars to wait and monitor for any incoming package that you may have ordered being away gives them the opportunity to easily snatch the package. You can install or doorbell camera smart Lock to help monitor your package while you are away it's also similar to money train physically. You can keep track of your valuable delivery with this.
  • Keep travel plans offline: it's important to keep your travel plans offline. This affords the burglars an insight to when the house will be empty which will help them in planning their activities as they know your house is empty and they have a higher chance of getting away with the burglary. Also, try to avoid posting pics of a vacation when you are still on vacation as it gives the burglars further information on your current location, also it can make you a target from criminals within the location.
  •  Inform a trusted neighbour: it will be nice to have a neighbour be on the lookout for your house while you are away on vacation. You do well to inform the neighbour if you are expecting any potential visitors such as a repairman or a service man this helps identify hold on your property while you are away.
  • Utilising the power of home automation you can set up home automation home automation huskies the impression that someone is home helping create the illusion of someone being present thereby making it difficult for burglars to know when the house is empty. Motion sensor lights or smart light bulbs and smart plugs can be controlled from your smartphone from anywhere making it easier to create the illusion of human presence in an empty house.
  •  Electrical inspection it is important to inspect most lighting at your home before embarking on a holiday especially the Christmas lights. By inspecting the wires for frayed chords helps prevent accidental fires. According to national fire protection association fire hazards are more likely to occur during the holidays so it's best to take proactive steps to avoid your building burning down while 

             you are away having a nice time

  •  Keep the gifts away: It's important to keep gifts and packages away from the windows and doorways. Its importance to keep these items where they won't easily be seen to prying eyes living it exposed Places 
  •  Inspects the fire furnace and chimney before leaving

 

Safety Measures for Retail outlets

The Holidays are always synonymous with lots of shopping such as, Black Friday sales, Cyber Monday and other forms of last-minute holiday shopping for  Christmas gifts and presents. This shopping behaviour leads to more transactions and more credit card spending.  If you don’t have any idea of how big the holiday shopping is, just know that sales from the holiday months account for a whopping 19. 7% of annual retail spending in the United States. That is very huge, and criminals always want to take advantage of this heavy cash flow.

While the holiday shopping period is a very lucrative business period for business, criminals also consider it lucrative enough to carry out their activities. As they exploit the weakness and lapses caused by heavy cash spending, staff going on holiday vacation and heavy human presence to strike.   Poor safety habits combined with last minute shopping chaos creates more avenues and opportunities for these criminals to operate. The following are some security measures retail outlets engage in during the holiday season:

  • Getting additional security guards: During holidays, it is important for retail outlets to get additional security guards to help out as there is a larger number of shoppers and the regular guards would be overwhelmed handling the additional crowd. One great feature of hiring security guards is that you can get some for short time purposes on contract basis. By patrolling the outlet, the guards to some extent deter prospective shoplifters from going ahead with their plans, they can also intervene in cases where an individual is trying to shoplift.  Security guards also help in areas of crowd control as the holiday season is bound to attract more shoppers to the retail outlet, the additional guards can help properly with regard to this.
  • Security Risk Assessment

Before the start of the holidays, it is important to get a security expert to conduct a risk assessment of the business. This helps identify the loopholes of the organisation's security structure. Security risk assessment helps point out grey areas in the business and recommend improvements that can be done to reduce these risks.

  • Employee Refresher course: It is very important to take employee's on refresher courses before the beginning of the holiday shopping season. Employees are trained in strategic thinking and also how to spot shoplifters and troublemakers. With this training employees understand the best ways to identify and handle shoplifters and also on the best customer care relationship with holiday shoppers. Holiday shoppers can be a bit on the edge as they are trying to do a last-minute shopping. Employees should be more diplomatic in their approach.
  • Update Security System

It is important to update the security system to be able to handle the holiday shopping. Update the outdated security equipment and make necessary adjustments where necessary.  Also choosing the right system for your outlet that best suits it.

  • Rearranging the outlet: 

Individuals planning on shoplifting and other petty crimes might have visited the store in the past with intentions of casing and mapping the outlet to make it much easier for them to implement their agenda. By making either major or minor changes to the store outlets, would throw the invaders of their game as they were not prepared for the new arrangement.

 

Safety Precaution for Organizations

 We all look forward to the holiday's, the laughter, the smiles and the amazing decorations. The holidays are always full of fun and the warmth of friends and family despite the snowy weather. In all this fun, the holiday season might not be all fun for many business, IT and security leaders as they are overwhelmed with last minute workloads, understaffed offices and most importantly focused on ending  the year on a more  profitable note.  

Being overwhelmed with extra workloads and less staff strength may leave organizations unprepared to protect their businesses from emerging security challenges that the holidays bring. Criminals know that so many businesses are overwhelmed during this period and want to take advantage of it. Both cybercrime and physical crime are on the rise during the holiday period. The following are ways to protect your business during this period.

 

Have a Plan: Why most people have a plan in their head, they never develop the plan into the implementation stage. It is important to have a plan as a response for any attack during the holidays. The plan is laid out in response to any issue that might arise, from shortage of staff, to cyber-attacks and physical attacks.

Audit your systems: Having an audit of all your systems might prove helpful as an audit helps point out systems that might be vulnerable and these systems are easily targets for exploitation by these criminals.

Update Employee on common forms of attacks: It is also important to always update staff members on various methods of attacks especially cyber-attacks. Staff should understand how this attack works and avoid deceptive packages and it is important to get the IT and security departments to vet suspicious emails and messages.

Diversify financial accounts: It is important to distribute the organizations finances into various accounts. This helps protect the organization's finances in the cases of a compromise on one of the accounts. when an account is compromised, it might take a while for the financial institutions to act on it during the holidays, that is why it is important to diversify the funds.

 

Be Observant and security conscious: It is important to observe the physical surroundings and report any suspicious individuals lurking around to the relevant agencies. Also it is also important to be cautious of mails during the holidays. Also always get the IT team to vet suspicious emails.

By James Kimmel, Director of Operations 

Strategic Security Corp.