The Joy of Cinema Exhibition – that is the thread that goes through almost every topic on this path you are on  – and adding expertise in your field.

Security issues – unfortunately – are only joyful to security geeks. But, they are extremely important – critically important, in fact.

Back To Reality

Security has been mentioned before. The script was written by someone, and that person has rights to that material. The word “rights” has many meanings, but in this sense it means that it belongs to them and no one else can use it without their permission. These rights are established and supported by every government. It is obviously detailed and the details are not really important to us – except that we are expected to be part of the chain that protects these writes rights.

The movie makers, the producer and director and studios and the distributor have been given some rights by the author. All of these people also expect their rights to be protected. And that is part of the deal that the cinema owner promises to the distributor and studio when they arrange to show a particular movie or some event piece.

On the other side of the puzzle, there is the customer. They have identity rights that need protecting as well. They might be a member of the cinema club. They probably have a credit card associated with the account. They probably have other personal information in the account.

Ah! …and let us not forget you, your identity rights. Somewhere in the many computers in the cinema, there must also be some information about you that you have rights to, for which you also have the expectation of security.

Security Constants

Depending on the day and the people you talk to, they will start with, “The VERY FIRST RULE of SECURITY IS …”, and the following phrase will be different.

They are all true. They are all of equal importance.

But the First First First Rule and the continuing and last rule is: Constant Vigilance!

The 2nd First Rule is: Prepare for Security from the beginning, don’t try to shove it in later.

The 3rd First Rule is: Have a Plan so that you can Panic Gracefully, Quickly, and Efficiently when things go wrong.

Some people will also say Transparency, but that is not your call. How to inform the public of a security issue is the bosses call. Don’t get in the way of that decision except to remind the boss that if customer information got out, if equipment security is breached, the rights-holders have a right to know.

There is not much you can do about the 2nd First Rule. Hopefully the security system was set up well from the beginning. But your daily activities, from keeping security doors closed to reporting breaches correctly, from knowing where system back-ups are stored and making certain that they are created – if that is part of your job, find a reason to make it important.

Crazy Breaches

To make all these things happen requires knowledge about all the components. You may only have direct responsibility for a small segment of the pie. But, Constant Vigilance, right?

Let’s look at some of the ways that company information gets “breached”, to use the slang of the industry. First, let’s start by looking at a crazy picture of some of the companies that have been hit recently. This comes from the website: Information is Beautiful:

World’s Biggest Data Breaches & Hacks

If these groups can have a security breach, then don’t imagine that you will not – that is another first rule of security: You can only imagine what you know. There are so many people out there looking for holes in systems in places we don’t know. Constant Vigilance.

But what does that mean to us who are just on the edge?

First, if there is a security door that has a chair in front of it so that it will not close – find out why and who immediately, or tell someone about it. Maybe it was the air conditioning team moving in repair pieces. Maybe whatever. Maybe someone is testing you to see what you will do. In one of those breaches up there, it was an air conditioning team who left something unsafe and someone used that moment to install their breach. Millions of people’s names and passwords were stolen, many millions of dollars lost.

Constant Vigilance. …and Trust No One.