Introduction

This chapter covers the concepts of applying physical security such as barriers, locked doors, biometrics, and other applications to secure an area against penetration.

What do you do after a system has been penetrated? As a Security+ technician, it is important to understand the different types of incidents and how to respond them. Incident response and forensics are covered in detail later in this chapter.

Security+ technicians must also understand risk assessment and how to rate the risk levels of various vulnerabilities. Risk assessment involves identifying areas of a business that are threatened by a potential loss, and the threats facing them. Once the risks are identified, countermeasures can be created to reduce the likelihood that they will become reality.

Domain 5.0, Objective 1.1: Physical Security

When people consider computer and network security, the focus revolves around accounts, passwords, file permissions, and software that limits and monitors access. However, even though a user's account has been denied access to files on a server, what is to stop that user from opening files directly at the server level instead? Worse yet, what is to prevent them from stealing the server's hard disk? Issues like these are why physical security is so important to the protection of data and equipment.

Physical security involves protecting systems from bodily contact. It requires controlling access to hardware and software, so that people are unable to damage devices and the data they contain. If people are unable to have physical access to systems they will...