by Mr. Parthesh Dhaggal, Founder, Enceplon.

Every organization spends considerable amount on various devices and equipment for specific tasks and functions. Just by installing them they won’t serve the purpose unless these devices work 24x7 throughout the year. How to ensure their seamless operations ? Here in the role of Surveillance Audit( SA)comes into play to facilitate smooth working of all apparatuses in an organization all around the year without any snag or snafu. As John F Kennedy wisely commented on security, “There are risks and costs to a program of action but they are far less than the long range cost of comfortable inaction”. In this case it pertains to SA which works on the famous security principle of ‘Prepare & Prevent rather than Repair & Repent.’ Prudent companies follow the former and laggards the latter.

Reasons For SA

Surveillance Audits are necessary to ensure and maintain system quality and integrity. These system checks help identify security gaps and assure business stakeholders that their company is doing everything in its power to protect its people, proper ties, and data. Many business and organizations find the need to regularly conduct Surveillance Audits to determine the functionality, performance and effectiveness of their systems as it is always a holistic process and at looks at different aspect of various systems. It ensures your organization to prepare for and prevent any untoward mishap rather than repair and repent later. Hence, Surveillance Audit is all the more essential and is becoming popular and mandatory worldwide.

Surveillance Audit

Effective resource allocation, improved performance, greater transparency and accountability, systematic & professional management of an organization, promotes learning an data driven decision making, helps organizations catch problems early. A good monitoring system can alert you to problems as soon as they arise, allowing you to immediately solve the issue.

Surveillance Audit

A Surveillance Audit (SA) is a process used by trained security professionals to assess and analyze a company’s or an organization’s property to locate weak points in its security ecosystem, and then offer a plan of action to help improve its safety and security. Security audits are ideal for commercial buildings and complexes, office towers, condominiums, schools, and other commercial or residential spaces in need of increased security. The SA will help improve the safety of property for residents or employees and will go a step further in preventing theft and damage to the property.

Methodology

The methodology of Surveillance Audit includes

Penetration Tests: The auditor tries to break into the organization’s infrastructure.

Compliance Audits: Only certain parameters are checked to see if the organization is complying with security standards.

Risk Assessments: An analysis of critical resources that may be threatened in case of a security breach.

Vulnerability Tests: Necessary scans are performed to find possible security risks. Many false positives may be present.

Due Diligence Questionnaires: Used for an analysis of existing security standards in the organization.

SA Checklist

Surveillance Audit involves a comprehensive list of security checks which includes Cyber Security, Data Security, Network Security, App Security, User Security . These are major areas that should be checked of during a Surveillance Audit.

Benefits Of SA

The Surveillance Audit offers several benefits both in terms of security and business intelligence. It promotes business growth, minimizes risk, identifies gaps in existing systems and processes, deters theft and vandalism , prevents crime, finds lag in your organization’s security training and awareness and helps you make informed decisions towards its betterment. Survellenace Audit enables protection of the critical data resources of an organization, keeps the organization compliant to various security certifications, identifies security loopholes before the hackers and mitigates hacker-risks, keeps the organization updated with security measures, identifies physical security vulnerabilities, helps in for mulating new security policies for the organization, prepares the organization for emergency response in case of a cybersecurity breach, Deterring theft & vandalism, Besides, it helps in compliance with policies, laws and regulations assurance level by providing a holistic view of the organization. It identifies potential issues early, areas (or risks) where improvements need to be made and improves the overall effectiveness of the organization. It ensures that the required work processes are in place and are effective. It helps identify if the final product is fit for use and meets customer requirements. The SA helps avoid lawsuits by ensuring that the organization meets all legal/regulatory needs. It ensures that the Corrective Actions (Remedial actions) are taken that are effective. Overall it protects the critical data resources of an organization. In case of any dispute Surveillance Audit helps by providing camera footage for evidence. It also monitors staff performance and staff safety. It helps in insurance claims and in reducing insurance premia.

Having proper systems and processes in place helps organizations reduce rework and rejections, which reduces costs. This, in fact, leads to better customer confidence, improved market reputation and increased sale. Last but not the least Surveillance Audit ensures peace of mind.

ISO 27001

Companies and organizations gather ,collect, classify, store and process humongous vast amounts of data these days. When organizations fail to secure or protect these important data, they expose them to a host of business risks like breaches, financial losses, reputational damage or even potential fines and prosecution. To overcome this challenge, the International Standard Organization (ISO) created a comprehensive set of guidelines called the ISO/IEC 27001:2013 (a.k.a. ISO 27001) to help global businesses establish, organize, implement, monitor and maintain their information security management systems. The ISO 27001 standard aims to secure people, processes and technology via three main cornerstones: Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability (commonly referred to as the C-I-A Triad). The ISO 27001 certification is applicable to businesses of all sizes. It affirms that organizations are identifying and managing risks effectively, consistently and measurably.

ISO 27001 Surveillance Audit

An ISO 27001 Surveillance Audit is a part of a continuous evaluation process that ensures that an organization is adhering to the stipulated standards. The certification body sends an auditor to determine if the management system is still functional and meeting the key requirements.

In other words, they review if the specific organization is operating the way it claims to as per the expectations of the compliance framework. The purpose is to certify that the company is still meeting the key elements of the ISO standard. In simple words, it is an audit from an accreditation company to check whether your business is still adhering to ISO Standards or not.

ISO 27001 surveillance audits are intensive in nature and commonly include a review of: Management, performance of key processes, processes to prevent and take action against incidents, internal auditing processes, areas of non-adherence,issues of serious concern, documents and records, implementation of suggestions post the internal audit.

The ISO Surveillance Audit enables to demonstrate how an organization implements continuous improvement to meet the requirements. One of its primary focuses is to find out how well the non-conformities from the previous audit are addressed. The surveillance audit for ISO 27001 also helps you prepare for the recertification audit.

ISO 27001 surveillance audits are conducted the year after your ISO certification and the year that follows that. Surveillance audits are conducted once a year but in many cases, it may be conducted twice depending on business requirements. Initial ISO 27001 surveillance audit certificates are valid for three years from the date of their issue.

Enceplon's Contributions

Our company Enceplon has been playing an important role in surveillance monitoring and surveillance audit. Established in 2015 in Mumbai with a broad vision to provide effective RHMS to security devices, Enceplon has been contributing to surveillance industry in India and overseas for over a decade.

Enceplon designs and manages Remote Health Monitoring Service( RHMS) for individuals, private and public organizations across different verticals. RHMS is an open source enterprise framework with a focus on health check solutions ,implementing and supporting surveillance and monitoring enterprises. The company has been the part of the ‘Smart City’ project for Status Dashboard and Critical Modules, and can therefore guarantee quality and continued robust health of security devices.

Enceplon’s Cloud-based RHMS Software has many advantages like No Initial Cost of Setup, Immediate Alerts , Time lyNotifications, Automatic Monitoring 24x7, Live Dashboard Service, Supports Multiple Branches /Sites, Works on Low Bandwidths, Stores Snapshots, Supports Many Brands of DVR, Offers Peace of Mind.

For more information visit:
Web: www.enceplon.com
Email us: parthesh@enceplon.com

(This "EXPERT TALK" Published in May 2023 Edition)