Possibly the biggest Security challenge we face?

Mark Hughes, BT Group Security

Organisations around the world are changing as they are impacted by factors including the global economy, disruptive technology, terrorism and increasing security threats. The security industry is transforming itself to meet the ever-developing challenge of protecting their businesses - and in that transformation, the human factor is of paramount importance. We need to examine how we are developing our security personnel to respond to this challenge flexibly and with the necessary skills, some of which may be commercial – and into that, we need to include the increasing use of third party staff.

Using external people brings a range of risks, so how do we gain access to their necessary skills and talents while maintaining the integrity of our service? As security experts, the challenges we face reflect those of our employers – pandemics, technological threat, terrorist activity, fraud and economic restriction. But through all of these, our overarching issue in security is the human factor – and dealing with that is perhaps the biggest challenge we face today.

Mark Hughes' biography