Why cybersecurity maturity matters in physical security

Being a penetration tester at Genetec means getting into the mind of an attacker. That perspective reinforces a simple truth: physical security and cybersecurity are two sides of the same coin. For the attacker, a weakness in one can create an opportunity in the other.

What attackers seek is the path of least resistance, often by combining physical and cyber tactics. For example, they may tailgate into a facility to connect an unauthorized device to the corporate network or exploit an unpatched camera to gain a foothold and create a blind spot for further malicious activity.

If a breach occurs, the fallout can lead to operational downtime, data leaks, and reputational damage. That’s why cybersecurity maturity matters when evaluating physical security technology.

The more disciplined your vendor is at anticipating, identifying, and containing risks over the long term, the better protected and prepared you’ll be when vulnerabilities surface.

TRUST CENTER

What does cybersecurity maturity look like in physical security?

Modern physical security platforms operate like enterprise IT systems. They connect devices, store sensitive data, integrate with cloud services, live on corporate networks, and support critical decisions.

While your physical security or facilities teams aren’t necessarily thinking, “I need cybersecurity maturity,” they are looking to secure buildings, protect cardholder information, safeguard sensitive evidence, and work with a vendor they can trust.

One thing I've observed during security assessments is that many organizations still view physical security devices differently from traditional IT assets.

Yet modern cameras, access controllers, intercoms, and servers are all connected systems that exchange data across enterprise networks. From an attacker's perspective, there is little distinction between a physical security device and any other network-connected endpoint.

Because technology is always changing, cybersecurity maturity has no finish line or checklist. It’s an ongoing practice of anticipating the unexpected and being prepared to withstand it. After all, new vulnerabilities emerge and attack paths evolve. The question isn’t simply whether the physical security product works today, but whether the vendor continues to challenge assumptions and think critically about how that product can fail tomorrow.

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Why certifications don't always paint the full picture

When evaluating physical security vendors, your first instinct might be to look at certifications.

Frameworks such as ISO 27001, SOC 2 Type 2, UL 2900-2-3, and CAPSS provide valuable assurance that a vendor’s security controls and processes have been independently assessed. They establish an important baseline and help demonstrate accountability.

But a certification alone doesn’t reflect cybersecurity maturity. Two vendors can hold the same certification while having very different cybersecurity approaches.

A certification might show that a vendor meets the criteria of a recognized standard, but it can’t tell you:

• How deeply cybersecurity practices are embedded in the way the company operates
• How consistently they prioritize cybersecurity throughout the product lifecycle
• How an organization responds when controls are tested or new vulnerabilities surface
• What teams and resources are in place to continually test and strengthen defenses

That’s where cybersecurity maturity becomes important. It’s not just about having the right controls on paper but about how the vendor puts them into practice every day. That commitment shows up in architecture decisions, development strategies, testing, education, vulnerability management, and continuous improvement.

Certifications are an important starting point, but buyers need to look deeper and ask: what expertise, programs, and security culture sit behind them? How is cybersecurity practiced, governed, and continually strengthened across the organization?

Certifications

How to spot cybersecurity maturity in a vendor

 They build cybersecurity into the product from the start

One of the most common misconceptions about cybersecurity in physical security is that it can be added later. In reality, the most important security decisions happen before a single line of code is written. That’s the definition of security by design—considering cybersecurity principles from the beginning and embedding layers of defense into the architecture and design of a product. Cybersecurity must be part of the foundation.

A useful way to think about this is the Swiss Cheese Model. It’s the idea that no single layer of defense is meant to stop every attack. Instead, multiple layers work together to prevent one failure from becoming a larger problem.

When performing security assessments, I rarely encounter a successful attack that results from a single failure. More commonly, several small weaknesses align to create an opportunity. A device might be running outdated firmware, network segmentation might be missing, systems might be misconfigured, and monitoring alerts might not be reviewed. Individually, those issues may not lead to compromise. Together, they can create a path for an attacker.

Consider a compromised network-connected device. Network segmentation can prevent the attacker from reaching unrelated corporate systems. Authentication and least-privilege controls can limit what they can do or change. On the backend, real-time health monitoring might detect unusual activity and trigger an alert. If one control fails, the others can help prevent the attacker from moving deeper into the environment.

Mature vendors don’t assume that every defense layer will work perfectly all the time. Instead, the goal is to design the product so that when one layer fails, the others help keep the situation under control and reduce the blast radius.

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 They challenge the product before attackers do

A vendor shows cybersecurity maturity when they’re willing to challenge their own product. Rather than assuming security controls will work as intended, mature vendors have dedicated teams that actively look for ways those controls could be bypassed or abused. Their job is to get into the attacker’s mind, figure out what could go wrong, and then put those assumptions to the test.

This mindset of offensive security should carry through the product lifecycle.

During development

During the design phase, developers use threat modeling to examine how systems communicate, where trust boundaries exist, and how a feature could potentially be misused. They ask certain questions to reveal weaknesses in the architecture while there’s still time to address them:

• How does one component authenticate itself to another?
• Which identity does the backend use to authenticate to this service?
• What happens if a dependency becomes unavailable?
• How could an attacker attempt to escalate privileges?
• Would we detect if a trusted component were behaving unexpectedly?
• What assumptions are we making, and what happens if they're wrong?

During testing and beyond

Before release, penetration testers take that thinking a step further by putting built-in security controls to the test. One of the most important lessons from penetration testing is that attackers often succeed by exploiting assumptions, not just technical vulnerabilities.

For example, testers may intentionally disrupt a camera connection to observe how the system behaves under unexpected conditions. They might attempt to bypass authentication controls, tamper with trusted communications between components, or exploit features in ways the designers never anticipated. Their objective is to uncover weaknesses using the same techniques, creativity, and mindset as real-world attackers.

Rather than only focusing on coding flaws, penetration testers challenge the assumptions underlying security controls. They assess whether protections continue to do as intended when confronted with unexpected inputs, untrusted data, abnormal workflows, or the misuse of legitimate functionality. This adversarial approach helps reveal vulnerabilities and security gaps that traditional testing methods may fail to detect.

In sum, while threat modeling anticipates how a product could be attacked, penetration testers find out whether those foundational defenses hold up in practice.

Together, they address weaknesses before they become an issue for customers.

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 They scale cybersecurity beyond a central team

Technology alone does not create mature security programs. Mature organizations make cybersecurity a shared responsibility, extending it beyond a dedicated security team to include the people who design, develop, and test the product. That means making cybersecurity part of how products are built every day rather than treating it as a final checkpoint before release.

A Security Champions program is one way to make that happen. Security Champions are usually volunteers from development, engineering, or quality assurance who act as a link between their team and the core application security team.

They become a go-to resource for cybersecurity within their own team, helping bring questions, concerns, and other needs back to the specialists. They can also bring cybersecurity experts into projects when deeper expertise is needed, and share new best practices, emerging threats, or lessons learned with their colleagues.

How does a cybersecurity-focused program benefit your physical security operations?

More people are working together to uncover security issues and stay ahead of emerging threats throughout the product lifecycle. Developers, testers, and other security enthusiasts across teams join the conversation and look at problems from different angles. These additional viewpoints can help uncover issues that a single perspective might miss, ultimately making the product more secure over time.

CYBERSECURITY HUB

 They prioritize transparency and trust

One misconception worth challenging is the idea that mature organizations have no vulnerabilities.

Every software company will discover vulnerabilities at some point. What differentiates mature organizations is how they prepare for them: are they doing all they can to catch problems early? And if something still happens, do they have processes in place to manage issues and inform customers? Better yet, are they able to efficiently keep their customers’ systems up to date with security patches?

Transparency is a critical part of cybersecurity maturity.

Mature organizations make it easy for customers and external cybersecurity experts to report issues responsibly by establishing formal channels such as vulnerability disclosure or bug bounty programs.

Participating in established disclosure ecosystems, like becoming a CVE Numbering Authority, is another indication of a vendor’s commitment to communicating vulnerabilities openly. How a vendor handles the discovery process reveals more about their cybersecurity maturity than the vulnerability itself.

For example, an independent researcher might discover a vulnerability in the main server installation of a physical security solution that could allow an attacker with local operating privileges to access sensitive credentials.

Even with no evidence of active exploitation, a mature vendor won’t hide the issue to protect its reputation. They’ll investigate the risk, identify affected products, prioritize remediation, issue a detailed security advisory, provide guidance and patches to help customers mitigate the risk, and acknowledge the researcher.

Transparency is not evidence of weakness. More often, it demonstrates the maturity and confidence required to address security issues responsibly.

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What should buyers ask?

As physical security platforms become increasingly connected, risks can escalate. This is why evaluating cybersecurity maturity should be part of your vendor assessment.

Beyond certifications and compliance checklists, consider asking:

• How is security incorporated into product architecture and design?
• Does the organization perform threat modeling?
• How are secure development practices embedded across engineering teams?
• How are vulnerabilities reported, investigated, and disclosed?
• Does the vendor engage external researchers through testing programs or bug bounties?
• How are critical vulnerabilities communicated to customers?
• How quickly are vulnerabilities investigated and remediated?
• Does the organization publish security advisories?
• How does the vendor demonstrate continuous improvement between audits and assessments?

The answers could offer a clearer picture of how a vendor approaches cybersecurity in day-to-day operations and whether they’ll give you the honesty you deserve when issues do come up.

Beyond checklists: A culture of resilience

Physical security platforms have become part of the broader enterprise technology ecosystem. They help control access, protect information, support business operations, and enforce trust decisions every day.

For that reason, evaluating a vendor’s cybersecurity maturity is no longer just a question of functionality. It’s a question of trust.

Are your physical security vendors consistently using secure design principles and challenging their own products and assumptions? Are they sharing cybersecurity responsibility across internal teams and showing a commitment to transparency and continuous improvement?

Cybersecurity maturity is not something an organization achieves once. It’s an organizational culture, a way of thinking and operating that keeps cybersecurity at the forefront of everyday decisions.

And as a penetration tester, my goal is clear: do everything possible to find vulnerabilities and work with other teams to make the product more resilient, so those weaknesses never become our customers’ problem.