If setting up firewalls, and undertaking hugely expensive and complicated processes for managing security in an organisation are considered acceptable and inevitable parts of operating in the world today, to what degree should organisations consider simply making themselves invisible?
Of course its a nonsense to suggest that a business could operate commercially without having a visible entry point for comms, both electronic and old-mail. But I'm not talking about making yourself invisible in that world. I'm talking about the building you operate from, and considering physical threats against it, the facilities contained within, the public utilities that service it, and not least your staff. If you don't have walk-up customers, don't offer facilities to the public, and have relatively few in or out-bound freight events, then why would you advertise where you are located? If you make yourself harder to find you make yourself harder to target by folk who are into old fashioned terrorism (bombs, guns and hazardous substances).
What you are left with is an argument between using your building as a 'monumental' advertisement on one hand, or increasing security (marginally because a dedicated terrorist will still find you) on the other. The advertisement argument virtually disappears if you happen to be a back end processing organisation servicing a 'captured' or limited market. But would it make a significant difference to security? Well perhaps 'a little', particularly if the terrorist isn't so much someone planning to cripple your business, but one who is looking for an 'easy' target, or for one which resonates with the public.
So if you are a back end office that doesn't need to advertise, the answer might be not to make it too easy to find you, and don't resonate with the public consciousness. Put a mailing address rather than a street address in the phone book and on your correspondence, don't put a picture of your building on your website and don't put a big sign out the front. And certainly don't try and create a powerful public image that includes concepts of extreme size, singularity, or extreme aggregation For example:
- World's (or UK's or whatever) biggest xyz
- World's only xyz, or
- XYZ service provider to all of Government/Industry.
And if you're not a back end processing office, you might still consider some of these methods of just taking your visibility down a notch or two. Oh, and you might check out who lives next door. We live in interesting times, and a little paranoia doesn't go astray.
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