 The stories appear almost daily: security breaches are costing business plenty, whether the criminals enter through the door, or the network. In addition to property and data loss, businesses risk employee safety, privacy violations and competitive secrets when their perimeters are left vulnerable. Keeping workplaces and corporate data secure has never been more important.
"Heightened security coupled with economic measures are driving businesses to find better ways to assure employees, customers and suppliers that the people coming to work are those authorized to be there at the time they arrive and working on the projects they are assigned," says Art Krozser, VP, enterprise solutions and global support for CyberShift. "Time theft has become a growing concern for companies employing fluctuating numbers of seasonal and/or part-time workers who could cost the company time and money in overpayments of overtime or invalid time entries."
It only takes a glance at the business pages to see that data loss through theft and careless data handling are also causing pain and prompting regulation. Because of this increased focus on securing assets, Frost & Sullivan predicts the physical and logical access control solutions market will reach $1.31 billion in 2014.
For years, the worlds of physical and logical access control operated separately. But technology has steadily brought them closer together. These trends are currently at work:
- Physical security has moved from analog to IP-based, enabling data collection devices to ride on networks and take advantage of capabilities such as analytics.
- Biometrics continues to evolve and improve as an access control credential.
- The advent of IP-based access control systems is driving integration with video surveillance.
- Logical access control is evolving beyond passwords to employ technologies formerly associated only with physical access control, such as biometrics.
Getting in the Door
Proximity cards continue to dominate the physical access control market, but biometrics, smart cards and IP are transforming the industry as quickly as the traditional market infrastructure can adapt. "The market will automatically achieve forward momentum when it fully comprehends all the nuances of the benefits and limitations," says Frost & Sullivan industry analyst George C. Paul.
Short-range RFID continues to dominate for proximity cards. "I'm surprised UHF RFID has not been implemented in a broader fashion with cards and reader costs coming down," says Paul Constantine, VP of merchandising for ScanSource Security. The former offers distinct disadvantages, he says. For example, short-range RFID will not detect if several people enter on one card, "UHF reads everybody that passes through, as well as fixed assets," he notes.
Biometric readers are increasingly offered as a part of access control solutions; more than half of the access control hardware sold by Accu-Time Systems, for example, is biometric-enabled. But while the biometrics market continues to hype its technical breakthroughs, obstacles persist, inhibiting actual use for access control.
One problem is, the systems that can deliver near-perfect read rates are often costly, making them affordable only for highly secure settings. Usability also continues to evolve."The industry wants plug and play and intuitive, and manufacturers and the technology are getting there, but at what expense?" asks Peter DiMaria, president of Accu-Time. Biometrics must also be sold correctly, such as not recommending a fingerprint reader for a manufacturing environment where fingers get dirty or greasy, and training is essential to ensure correct enrollment and daily use."Biometrics does not offer quite the same reliability as smart cards or RFID," says Seth Morgan, security analyst for Direct Source, an integrator whose services include both physical and logical access control solutions.
Fingerprint continues to lead the biometric pack for access control, but vendors are promoting other biometrics to overcome fingerprint reading drawbacks. Fujitsu's new PalmSecure uses the vein patterns in the hand as the identifier. Since the hand never actually touches the reader, the solution is more hygienic and increases the life of the sensor, making it great for industries including healthcare, according to Vic Herring, vice president of sales and business development of Fujitsu Frontech North America. The palm is also truly one of a kind, people of every size and ethnicity can be read, and it delivers a .01 fail rate compared with up to 15 percent for fingers, according to Herring.
Springfield, MO-based Creative Healthcare Systems deployed PalmSecure at Bates County Memorial Hospital in Butler, MO, for the time and attendance portion of its MedGenix financial information system. Bates, which will also use the solution for access control, wanted to move away from the touch required for fingerprint reading. Implementation and rollout have gone well, and read rates "seem to get better as people get used to positioning their hands properly," says Steve Everest, president and CEO of Creative Healthcare Systems.
Adding Video to Access Control
Like other previously proprietary systems, access control is moving into the IP world. Video is going IP as well, and is rapidly declining in price. That's enabling the two to be more inexpensively and easily integrated.
Integration of video with access control allows companies to tie access events to a video log, to verify identity after the fact. With the addition of analytics tools, users can add real-time functionality to their systems -- such as, that credential doesn't match that person, or, two people entered with that one credential. SMBs with about 10 to 40 doors are the sweet spot for integrated access/video solutions, says ScanSource's Constantine.
The potential uses for integrated video are drawing attention. "The number of proof of concepts in the last six months has almost quadrupled,"says Lee Ann Schoeder, director of deployment services for Direct Source.
Logical Access Control, Biometrics
Converged physical and logical access control is possible now, but adoption has been slow until recently. "We're seeing them coming together more often than not in the last eight months," reports Direct Source's Schoeder. "There is a large recognition across the board that the change is coming," although it takes executive-level interest to cross the organizational roadblocks.
Devices once found only in physical access control are making their way into logical solutions, such as biometric readers built into laptops. "Over the next five years there will be a shift from unencrypted to encrypted storage" to prevent data loss, says Julian Reusing, president of MXI Security. MXI's USB drives use a built-in biometric reader to enable access to encrypted data stored on the devices.
As a result of convergence, physical security world and IT VARs are now pitching access control solutions. "If you're not in physical security, this is the perfect opportunity to differentiate, especially if you have net-working skills," says ScanSource's Constantine. "The IT director is now a key decision-maker, and the security director is in an advisory role,â" an advantage for IT VARs.
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