2024 in Review: Security Management’s Favorite Stories
Whether you are working, traveling, or relaxing this holiday season, you might be looking for some reading material to keep you informed at the end of 2024. The Security Management staff reflected on 600+ articles we wrote this year to pull together our favorite articles, themes, and packages, now wrapped up with a bow for you to peruse.
What were your favorite articles or topics from Security Management this year? Let us know on social media.
Claire Meyer, Editor-in-Chief
AI, AI Everywhere
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the hot topic of the year, and it can prove challenging to sift through the buzz, the sales pitches, and the panic to find where AI can legitimately affect organizations—for better or worse. We’re seeing new crimes and fraud schemes taking advantage of AI hype and capabilities, including malware campaigns, deepfakes, and more convincing and obnoxious robocalls.
But there are opportunities as well.
“Our investment themes are basically good AI is good business,” said GSX 2024 keynote speaker and investor Rana el Kaliouby. “Yes, AI offers a massive economic opportunity, but it also offers amazing solutions to humanity’s biggest challenges.”
AI can also offer solutions to some of security’s biggest challenges, including sifting through mountains of open-source intelligence to find viable threats that need to be addressed. AI can also benefit enterprise security risk management (ESRM) implementation by improving communication and automate asset mapping across organizations, researchers found.
But if you only have time for one AI article, I would recommend Megan Gates’s deep dive into a new regulation out of the EU and what it means for security vendors, practitioners, and law enforcement.
Gates always does a great job digging into legislative and regulatory changes that affect the security industry, and with the EU AI Act, she collected input from industry leading companies and organizations about how the regulation could impact them in the near-term and as they develop new products and initiatives. Since many other nations are looking to the EU as an example for regulating AI applications, this is a good primer for anyone considering implementing AI tools and functionality.
Mission: Support Career Transitions
Approximately 200,000 U.S. service members leave the military every year. Not all of them look at corporate security as their next step, but many do, and they often feel significant culture shock when they transition into the private sector. This collection of articles explores some of the challenges, adjustments, and opportunities that former military and law enforcement personnel will need to contend with if they want to succeed when they join the security profession.
What’s remarkable here is exactly how many security practitioners leapt at the chance to participate. Every single one offered insights, advice, and an offer to personally help any other former public sector individual considering joining private security. Participants were frank about the pitfalls they had personally encountered (and often fallen into) as well as the mentors who helped them through. The goodwill, openness, and amount of time freely provided made this project extremely gratifying to work on and publish.
Nello Caramat, Publisher
Weighing Student Development in K-12 Behavioral Threat Assessment
One of my favorite and insightful reads is from our March 2024 coverage on early intervention in school security (republished in our September 2024 print edition under the headline “Act Your Age”). In this day and age of school security, Claire Meyer explores the nuances security professionals and school staff must be aware of when deciphering a surfacing threat among schoolchildren. Some actions shown by children are not truly indicative of a violent situation but a mere undertone of some other issue that needs to be addressed. The article notes that school resource officers need to be relationship builders within the school, much like how law enforcement departments use community-oriented policing. Both in schools and communities at large, information sharing is key to realize, foresee, and even remedy protentional violent actions.
I know this topic will always be at top of mind, so hopefully this article can help guide our industry forward by going beyond the metal detector.
Security’s Best Friend: How K9s Detect, Deter, and De-Escalate
Another favorite article of mine was published in January 2024, “Security’s Best Friend: How K9s Detect, Deter, and De-escalate.” This article explored the duties of man's best friend in hospitals. The article explains how having canines present in these soft targets can aid in deterring potential threats.
I found the thought process behind the breed of dogs used very interesting as well. Using "pointy-eared" dogs has a different outcome than using "floppy-eared" dogs. The fact that dogs literally come in ALL shapes and sizes, allows a variety of placement into the security field.
Do I think my couch potato pups could be potential security K-9 employees? Probably not. But, in their eyes, I believe they "think" they can, as they bark at any passerby they see out the window or maul the mail as it flies through the mail slot. In their eyes, they are doing their duty and protecting the ones they love.
Have Time for Some Fast Facts?
In addition to reading insightful articles, I thoroughly enjoy watching Security Management's YouTube videos. These snippets allow me to gain pertinent security knowledge in a few short minutes, covering topics ranging from politically charged environments to bank robberies, de-escalation best practices, and food safety. The videos are a quick view but still very insightful and timely.
Megan Gates, Senior Editor
Behind the Scenes at the Zoo
It’s one thing if a llama gets out. But what if a tiger escapes its enclosure at the zoo? How do zoo personnel prepare for that scenario? And what happens if they can’t safely recapture the tiger?
Those questions were on my mind after reading about Ben, the Andean bear, who escaped his enclosure at the Saint Louis Zoo in 2023. So, I reached out to some zoo security experts at the Columbus Zoo Family of Parks and the Denver Zoo to find out how they work with their animal care teams to be prepared to respond should the worst-case scenario happen. Those interviews resulted in one of my favorite pieces from the past year, “How Zoos Respond When a Dangerous Animal Escapes,” because it demonstrates the power of collaborative, empathetic, and proactive security in action.
How People are Robbing Banks Today
In our age of digitally-enabled fraud, I was shocked to learn that more in 2022—the most recent year data is available for—there were nearly 2,000 incidents of robbery, burglary, and larceny targeting a financial institution. Who are these people and how are they physically stealing from banks?
I wanted to find out, which led to some great conversations with the ASIS Banking and Financial Services Community about tried-and-true robbery methods, training tactics to keep banking staff and customers safe, and methods to harden ATMs and branches against crime.
“We try to do whatever we can to create prevention for robberies and incidents, but we build our systems with the expectations that it is going to happen—with the hope that it never does,” Robert Ross, Gate City Bank vice president, office services and security, told me.
Executive Protection in the Spotlight
I was walking in my neighborhood in July when received a notification on my phone that former U.S. President Trump had been shot at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The news was shocking. I had to sit down to process it before jumping in to assist our team in providing analysis to our readers.
We reached out to former Secret Service agents, executive protection practitioners, and threat intelligence experts to understand what went wrong, what executive protection teams could learn from the incident, and how security measures around public figures might change to share those insights with our readers.
In December when UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was murdered while walking to an investor meeting, we used that same process to understand what happened, measures security practitioners were taking to protect their CEOs from targeted violence, and how the private security landscape might shift after this tragic incident.
These stories were difficult to write, but our collaborative effort produced important and actionable takeaways for our readers to help improve their organization’s security posture amidst a changing threat landscape.
Tyler Stone, Director of Digital Design
Infographic: What Support Do Workers Want from Employers?
I really enjoyed this infographic because it tells a story using data, guiding readers to quickly understand whether their workplace culture might be at risk and how to address it. Designed by my colleague Mariah Bartz, this infographic combines clean, simple visuals with thoughtful use of color to create an engaging design. I particularly appreciated how it distills complex information into an accessible narrative that is both easy to grasp and actionable—a great example of design enhancing understanding.
Hostile Vegetation: 8 Plants to Use in Your CPTED-Friendly Flower Bed
As graphic designer, I found this article particularly compelling. It highlights how design, architecture, and landscaping can play a vital role in crime prevention, offering cost-effective and strategic alternatives to traditional security measures. I’m fascinated by crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED); the concept of using thorny plants as natural barriers is both innovative and practical, and it’s neat to see how thoughtful landscaping can enhance worksite security programs while maintaining a welcoming atmosphere. Kudos to Claire Meyer and Mariah Bartz for crafting an informative and visually engaging article layout that effectively supports the content.
Sara Mosqueda, Associate Editor
Concierge Security
I really enjoyed working on this project because of the topic’s applicability to seemingly every sector. While sites like museums and casinos were highlighted, this is one of those fascinating subjects where the skills important in delivering a concierge-like experience to someone interacting with security can apply to every level and industry.
Why Security Gets Sued
Similar to the September project on SOCs, this topic contained actionable pieces aimed at helping readers strengthen the organizations in digestible and adaptable ways. We really tried to put additional effort this year into providing actionable insights for security practitioners in addition to trend analysis and news reporting.
Election Security and Civil Unrest
The focus for October was originally going to center on medical emergencies, but I was excited when we changed it up to focus on election security instead. Along with being very timely, the articles here were able to go beyond what wider media outlets often already focus on (i.e., misinformation, foreign influence, and the other usual suspects). We also looked into some areas that are just as important in protecting democratic institutions but don’t always get a spotlight (i.e., workplace safety in courtrooms, mitigating threats of riots, impacts on other organizations, and polling places).
