With a nominal beam power of nearly 1.4MW, the PSI High Intensity Proton Accelerator facility is currently at the forefront of the high intensity frontier of particle accelerators. A key issue of this facility is to ensure safe operation of the SINQ spallation source. In particular, too large beam current density and/or inaccurate beam steering can seriously compromise the integrity of the spallation target. Recently, a campaign has been launched in order to improve the fast detection of improper beam delivery and therefore the reliability of the system. New beam diagnostics elements such as an absolute intensity monitor, a beam position and second moment monitor as well as additional loss monitors have been installed during the 2017 shutdown. In 2018 a new SINQ target will be installed featuring a system of thermocouples which will keep track of the beam position. Moreover, an additional monitor is currently under study which should reliably detect small beam fractions accidentally bypassing the muon production target TE and representing a dangerous occurrence for the SINQ spallation target. The present efforts to increase the efficiency of the SINQ protection system are reviewed in this contribution.