Security Essentials for Coworking Spaces

There was a time when keycards and a good spam filter would be enough for most workplaces to avoid the bulk of mainstream security threats. This decade however is marked by high-profile examples of digital and physical security failures. Your space needs to demonstrate that security is one of its primary focuses. You must be up to date on best practices and have to utilize the latest security technology.

Maintaining your security infrastructure is key to both your long-term flexible workspace strategy and risk management. On the other hand, providing a secure environment is also part of the community you create surrounding your space.

Come Up With a Plan

The most important thing you can do to improve your space’s security is to make a concrete list of security-based objectives based on your target group(s). You won’t accomplish them all overnight, but breaking down a big goal into smaller steps will keep your tasks from becoming overly daunting and will help you budget your time and money.

• Make sure your plan reflects the needs of your target audience.
• Prioritize and set deadlines for rolling out new phases, addressing the most critical needs first.
• Ensure that your plan is auditable. When it comes to teams and corporate clients, it’s not just what you can say but what you can prove.
• It’s a bonus if you can integrate multiple solutions in one place to find your registries more easily, especially where they’re linked to member profiles.

What Should You Consider for Your Security Plan?

Physical Security and Access Control

Physical security is mostly ensured through choosing the right access control system, which fits your space. You can choose between multiple access control systems:

• Door Readers and Keyless Access
• RFID Access – RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) uses electromagnetic fields to identify and authenticate access cards or tags.
• Smart Locks – Electronic locks with built-in communication technology.
• Mobile Access Control
• Biometric Access – Such as fingerprint or facial recognition.
• Visitor Management Systems – ideal for temporary guests or events.
• Wi-Fi Authentication - Wi-Fi Access is controlled by individual usernames and passwords or known devices.

Running a coworking space means you most likely trust an established provider to manage your access control. Cobot integrates with the most recognizable providers - Tapkey, Kisi, Sensorberg, Salto KS, and Luckey.

If you want to learn more about physical security and access control, we have written an entire article dedicated to just that. Check it out here!

Outside of Access Control, there are a couple of other things you can do in order to improve the security of your physical space:

Lighting is a simple measure that can be taken to create more trust in your security at all times of the day or night. If you haven’t already—or simply haven’t done it in a while—spend a little time in your venues after dark to identify the corridors, doors, rooms, and entrance and exit points you want to keep well-lit for the benefit of your night-owl coworkers. At night, you ideally want all space users to come and go from a single entrance. Signage noting what is closed at night can help orient people when they are where they are not supposed to be. However, this shouldn't be at the cost of the legally required multiple safety exits.

When planning signage for emergency exits and other essential points, there are several key considerations to keep in mind. Coworking spaces are usually very multicultural, and not all members of your space will speak the same language. What can you do to ensure safety is having signage in multiple languages, especially the ones most frequently spoken in your community? (Why not make a survey about it? It is also a great content idea!)

Another thing you should do to ensure safety is to mark signs with the proper pictograms. For example, in Europe, there is the DIN EN ISO 7010:2012 standard ensuring that the same symbols are used throughout different locations.

Member and Psychological Security

While physical safety is crucial, true security in a coworking space goes beyond doors and access control - it extends into the daily interactions and overall well-being of your members. Your safety strategy should, therefore also address psychological security, ensuring that your community is inclusive, supportive, and resilient, empowering everyone to feel safe, respected, and able to thrive.

A Code of Conduct is a great example of something that creates common ground for your memberships and can help you take an active stance against sexual harassment, racism, ableism, and other limiting behaviors that prospects are actively looking to steer clear of in what will be their future workspace. We’ve created a Code of Conduct template for coworking spaces that is free to use and adapt, and which we hope will help make the lengths you’ve gone to provide for an inclusive and diverse community visible.

Digital Security

Okay, here we are getting a bit more technical, but digital security is one of the pillars of coworking security, so bear with us:

Network Security

Your members likely all rely on uninterrupted high-speed internet access. It’s inarguably essential infrastructure but also a significant area of vulnerability if the optimal systems aren’t in place.

Analyze how you’re providing access to your networks, monitoring for abnormal activity, and maintaining the integrity of all the smart devices.

A system that manages unique logins for each member, like Radius, is the ground floor of network security. The next most important consideration is how many separate networks you want to establish. If all your coworkers send and receive data on one network, a breach could affect everyone's privacy. By using separate virtual networks (VLANs), you can isolate different groups containing potential breaches and significantly enhance security. VLANs also allow controlled cross-communication when needed—for example, to shared resources such as printers or presenter displays. Roll this plan out in multiple phases and work within your current scope, progressively expanding until you achieve your desired network structure.

Avoid using shared login details entirely and implement individual SSO (Single Sign-On) tied to member profiles. Cobot's RADIUS integration offers that!

Be sure to take precautions with your smart devices, too – or before you know it, a fish tank could spell disaster. To do that you can segment smart devices into separate networks (see segmentation, VLAN), disable unised features, and enforce auto-update. On top of making your devices tamper-proof, find out if there are integrations, like Cobot and ezeep for printing, that can help you manage access, permissions, and a registry.

Cybersecurity

• Have a handle on the traffic you don't want making the rounds on your network, especially when it comes to potentially malicious websites. It's also a good idea to have a dedicated administrator who can review requests for exceptions if any arise.
• Two‑factor authentication (2FA) is an easy place to start, and while it isn’t by any means a guarantee, it could prevent you from falling for sophisticated but preventable phishing attempts.
  Psst: Cobot offers a built-in 2FA.
• Schedule regular backups: Preventing data loss is crucial for small and medium businesses. If an interruption occurs (hard drive crashing, getting hacked) an independent backup of the company's most vital business information will be a tremendous help to getting up and running again.
• A big part of cybersecurity is member education. Read more in the next section!

Member education

• Encourage your members to regularly check to see if their antivirus and security software is up to date, consider VPNs or extensions, regularly scan devices, and make sure your OS is updated.
• Don’t wait for a security failure to tell your staff and members to be aware of the threat of phishing emails and suspicious downloads. Educate them to never download or open attachments they don’t recognize, to be able to recognize fake email addresses and domains, avoid QR Code phishing, and never enter sensitive company data online without proper verification.

Use big updates—like those for operating systems that will likely affect many coworkers in your space—as an opportunity to remind your membership to do a quick stock check of their personal security measures.

Make Your Measures Explicit

Do you remember emergency preparedness drills in school? Just like you knew which teachers to check in with and where to go in case of an emergency, you want everyone in your space to have an idea of who to contact and what to do if something arises that may compromise their safety. Security awareness should provide the same peace of mind. You’ve let your members know what individual precautions they can take, but you also want them to know what peer actions can be taken if an emergency arises.

Do you have a protocol for members to follow to alert community managers if there’s a network breach? Once you know something has happened, how will you respond, and how will everyone in your team know what their role is, especially if you are legally required to report a breach (GDPR)? When and how will you alert other members and inform law enforcement?

• Don't take for granted that all potential users understand the differences between open networks and private and secure connections. Education should be a part of your security plan.
• If your terms and conditions have a security section, that's already a great step. It could also be worth capturing some key points on a poster, keeping them in your newsletter footer, or sending a regular reminder to do an update check and review the security policy.

It’s important to stress that a security breach isn’t something to be embarrassed about. It’s much more important to address issues quickly and that the only thing that would result in punishment is trying to hide a breach, not the breach itself. The sooner you know that a system has been compromised the sooner you can do something about it.

Ready to Get Started?

Automated access control is the backbone of a well-organized coworking space, combining security, efficiency, and member satisfaction. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to scale, Cobot’s integrations can help you build a coworking space that runs smoothly and securely.