You're settling into your cubicle with a hot cup of coffee when the haunting begins. The HVAC blows cold on your neck. That's weird, you think. You take a sip of your coffee but choke when the moaning starts. The pipes never sound like that. The lights flicker, go out. A hush, then panic sets in across the office.

High-pitched shrieks send you and your colleagues running for the elevators. The doors open and close but the elevators go nowhere. You flee down the stairs. Pretty soon the neighborhood kids point at your glass and steel tower and talk in hushed whispers of the haunted high rise.

Premise for a bad, low-budget Hollywood flick? More like a plausible scenario without adequate security mitigation. A new report from researchers at Edith Cowan University in Australia offers concrete recommendations on how to secure smart buildings.

There's a lot of buck-passing going on.

Buildings can be hacked, and many organizations are not thinking carefully about how to mitigate this risk. Worse, the convergence of cybersecurity and physical security when it comes to facilities management means there's a lot of buck-passing going on. The new guidance document offers a step-by-step checklist to evaluate the security risk to your organization.