The Department of Homeland Security advises that October is “National Cyber Security Awareness Month”. That makes it a good time to provide a renewed list of cybersecurity safety tips.

They come down to be alert, be updated, and love those passwords!

Seriously, cybersecurity is requiring increasing attention, and will continue to do so.

Google “physical perimeter security” and the first item to appear dates to March, 2013 – “The 5 D’s of Outdoor Perimeter Security”. In today’s digital world, four years can make a post a security classic. So what are the “5 D’s”?

Kevin Marier, founder and CEO of Connex International, Inc., who wrote the piece, identifies them as Deter, Detect, Deny, Delay and Defend. As it happens, PRO Barrier Engineering’s approach to anti-terrorism protection is based essentially on the same principles.

Detect the presence of unauthorized intruders and and keep them out of your premises, either at the gate or the perimeter. This is what PRO Barrier exists to do – counsel customers and prospective customers on keeping properties safe through hardheaded principles of site security, and to equip them with the barriers or other equipment equal to the challenge.

Spend some time on www.probarrier.com and learn how seriously PRO Barrier takes the site security challenge. Start with “About Us”, then go where your security concerns take you. We’ll be pleased to talk with you further.

Much as we’d like to put behind us the massacre at the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas, there is much to be learned from an actual security crisis. And one, argues Tom M. Conley, on the Security magazine blog that amounted to “a catastrophic security failure.” (Conley is the President and CEO of the Conley Group, headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa, and has a strong security background.)

We don’t want to replay the massacre here, only alert you to Conley’s concerns on the catastrophe.

“Even in the very early stages of this news, I was confused how it was that the killer could have been allowed to keep shooting seemingly unhampered for 11 to 12 minutes (depending on which news report is accurate),” Conley begins. “My first thought was, ‘Where the heck was hotel security’ while all this shooting was happening and while people were dying? I thought for sure the Mandalay Bay armed security officers, if there were any on duty at the time, would have quickly responded and neutralized the shooter. The news got worse and even more mystifying when the Las Vegas Metro Police revised the timeline of events…”

Keep all of this in mind and revisit it as more emerges on the Las Vegas massacre. Learning from reality is a key security discipline.

The Security Executive Council provides a unified look at what it takes to insure security in an organization. There are a host of factors, from executive management to quality oversight and more, that influence organizational security.

The need is to avoid a siloed approach to risk assessment and avoidance, yet such “tunnel vision” frequently hampers the ability of an enterprise to deal with the risks it faces, sometimes unawares.

Enterprises are well-served by executives who say, in effect, “Hold it, what are all the risks we’re really facing” and then seek to deal with them in a coordinated manner – and not “once and done” either.

European cities have been installing vehicle barriers on their streets after a series of of attacks using cars, vans and trucks, The New York Times reports.,

Barriers being deployed in Britain, Germany, and France, for example, portable as well as solid designs. Some portable barriers are designed to resemble flower pots and sculptures.

The head of tourism in Frankfurt, Germany, says the threat of vehicle attacks has led to the creation of a new industry. “Security companies are trying to help cities develop more effective ways to protect their residents, while also preserving access for emergency vehicles.

“Each city and region develops its own security measures. Although little has changed in everyday life for Germans, concrete barriers have become commonplace at festivals and gatherings from Düsseldorf to Berlin. That includes the Museum Embankment Festival in Frankfurt this weekend and the “Fan Mile” in Berlin, stretching from the Brandenburg Gate to the Tiergarten, for a German Cup soccer match.”

Quoting experts, Joel Griffin on the Security InfoWatch blog thinks the Las Vegas shooting massacre “will likely serve as a game-changing incident for the security industry.” From hotel front desks and room service staffs to stadiums and open-air venues, the question will consistently become, “Are we sure we’re secure. Do we realize what could happen around us?”

That Stephen Paddock, the Las Vegas gunman, was able to get where he was with an arsenal of weapons and, indeed, act alone is forcing hotel and stadium operators, indeed anyone responsible for public venues, “to rethink where their event perimeters begin and end.”

It’s grim that it should be that way, but these are our times and we need to find continually renewed ways of living safely in them. “According to Dr. Lou Marciani, director of the National Center for Spectator Sports Safety and Security (NCS4) at the University of Southern Mississippi,” says Griffin, “the Las Vegas massacre, now the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, has introduced yet another paradigm into event security to include mitigating attacks that could be launched from nearby high-rise buildings.”

Police and security experts will have to translate those sentiments into enhanced protection at public venues of all sorts.

British police now have a technique of throwing out what you might call “unwelcome nets” to stop vehicle terror attacks. The Washington Post reports that the nets, actually called Talon, contain barbs that “are designed to puncture and grip the tires, while the plastic netting becomes entangled in the vehicle’s front wheels, bringing the driver to an abrupt stop.”

“The concept,” the Post adds, “would be familiar to anyone who has watched the Spiderman movies.” We haven’t seen any Spiderman movies, but the photo with this post presents the nets as anything but a welcome mat.

The nets can be deployed by just two officers in less than a minute “and can effectively stop vehicles heavier than a London double-decker bus.” That should do it.

Security at authorized entry points with established protocols has its own challenges, the U.S. government has found, and Government Security News reports.

Federal facilities typically issue PIV/CAC access credentials for long-term employees and contractors “but still have to rely on traditional physical access credentials for the rest of their population,” GSN notes.

“Mixing technologies can make things more complex and does not provide a uniform security posture.”

So what to do? Read the rest of the informative GSN post for the answer. It’s fascinating.

The 12th annual Homeland Security Week conference will be held Oct. 24-27 in Washington, the Homeland Security blog advises. “The conference brings together some of the country’s top subject matter experts in fields related to national security, intelligence, counterterrorism, border security, biometrics, cybersecurity and many more industries.”

Here’s more about the conference, which was begun three years after the Department of Homeland Security itself was launched:

“The conference brings together some of the country’s top subject matter experts in fields related to national security, intelligence, counterterrorism, border security, biometrics, cybersecurity and many more industries.”

Information on the Homeland Security Week conference is available at the event’s website.

Police have been getting creative in protecting against vehicle terror attacks – even to using garbage trucks as security barriers. That was the thrust this month in a National Public Radio report explaining “why the garbage truck is on the cutting edge of law enforcement.”

“Even the Trump tower in Manhattan has been encircled by trucks,” the report noted. Both garbage and sand trucks are being pressed into emergency barrier duty. “A lot of things can push up against them, but very few, if any, are going to move them.”

One observer, who uses a wheel chair, said she’d prefer to see ordinary garbage trucks used for crowd and vehicle control over tanks. Of course, there’s nothing better than actual vehicle barriers at strategic points.