Data Center Security and Safety: How to Address New Risks?

Data center security and safety are key to ensuring the service continuity of digital services and guaranteeing the integrity of data hosted in server rooms. Regarding security, it involves implementing solutions to manage the risks of unintentional, accidental, or fortuitous events (fire, flood, excessive temperatures, etc.). While safety consists of protecting against intentional and malicious acts and events (intrusion, hacking, etc.).

In recent years, risks have evolved. An overview of new threats and how to protect against them.

Beyond IT cyber risks, all data centers now benefit from computerized and generally connected administration, whether for technical supervision, optimization of power supply and cooling, energy performance monitoring, asset management, physical access control, or video surveillance.

All these tools, including DCIM (Data Center Infrastructure Management) solutions, allow for monitoring, even remotely, the building infrastructures of data centers. They ensure alerts in case of an incident (intrusion, incipient fire, power supply problem, excessively high temperature, etc.), maximize availability, optimize service levels, and enable rapid reaction when problems occur.

Just like the IT applications and digital services hosted in the data center, these tools can be targets of attacks, including terrorist attacks (political or economic). They must therefore also be protected from cyber risks, in a context where these risks are tending to increase significantly.

With the acceleration of digital uses, it is becoming essential to process data as close as possible to its point of use, to reduce latency and connectivity costs. The number of edge data centers has thus grown exponentially in recent years to support the deployment of 5G, new uses (particularly artificial intelligence technologies), and to support local economic activity hubs. Not to mention the proliferation of Edge Computing initiatives, i.e., the establishment of micro data centers with one to two racks.

Located in urban or peri-urban areas, often in buildings shared with offices or residences, these edge data centers host sensitive data and must be protected from risks of fire, water damage, or intrusion. Unlike large data centers with secure and controlled perimeters around the building, their environment (neighborhood or immediate proximity to public spaces) makes them more easily accessible to potential malicious individuals.

Furthermore, generators and outdoor cooling equipment are not always appreciated by local residents. They may sue the data center operator, with the risk of having to stop or even dismantle the data center. Not to mention the risk of deliberate damage to this outdoor equipment by unscrupulous residents.

Drone technology is now accessible to everyone. These devices can potentially fly over data centers with explosive charges or devices capable, through electromagnetism, of altering the behavior of site equipment or cutting off access to the fiber or electrical network.

For large data centers, located in a dedicated building, the roof – which most often houses cooling equipment and sometimes backup generators – therefore becomes the fifth facade to protect, just like the other four, which have long been secured. This risk must be considered from the design stage of the data center, particularly by operators of vital importance (OIV), by maintaining a certain exterior neutrality, so as not to attract attention.

With increasingly high summer temperature peaks, it is no longer uncommon to design data centers to be capable of operating, without service degradation, with outdoor temperatures reaching up to 45 degrees Celsius, compared to 38 degrees Celsius a few years ago.

Similarly, seismic risk in mainland France is no longer confined solely to the Southeast. Most data centers located near mountain ranges have long been equipped with devices to mitigate seismic risks. However, regions like Brittany are experiencing greater risks in this area than before, which must therefore be integrated into data center design, with appropriate choices for the concrete structure of the building, as well as technical floors, anti-vibration supports for chillers or generators, etc.

Finally, rising ocean levels, along with soil impermeabilization, increase the (rare but major) risks of data center flooding or submersion. Even more than for any other building, the choice of location is therefore paramount to guarantee the optimal functioning of the data center and associated digital services.

By Tristan Richard, Operations Director, APL Data Center.