It goes without saying that you know your organisation, you understand your security needs and you’ve taken the necessary steps to protect your business. But are you 100% sure you’ve got everything covered?
The security world has become highly sophisticated, significantly increasing the demands on your security team. You’re expected to protect primary business processes, provide hospitality support, perform risk assessments and address compliancy. While also tracking modifications to building and employee statuses and implementing security systems and procedures.
Identify and highlight issues
Often, potential issues with physical security can be identified quickly. And there are many simple improvements that can increase the efficiency and effectiveness of your security systems and processes.
Although some issues are easy to spot, others need an expert eye. Many, for example, require analysis that involves specialist metrics such as least privilege scoring, application of separation of duties or compliance verification.
Clear reporting
A regular health check is crucial to help ensure your physical access control system is effective and keep it that way. But you need clarity on the steps to take to address any problems. Our health check report is designed for C-level executives such as CSOs and provides transparency for your physical security environment.
Frequently asked questions
At a very basic level, access control is a means of controlling who enters a location and when. The person entering may be an employee, a contractor or a visitor and they may be on foot, driving a vehicle or using another mode of transport. The location they’re entering may be, for example, a site, a building, a room or a cabinet. We tend to call it physical access control to differentiate it from access control that prevents people from entering virtual spaces – for example when logging into a computer network.
If you decide to use an access control system, it’s probably because you want to secure the physical access to your buildings or sites to protect your people, places and possessions. That’s just the start for access control systems though. The right system, used well, can add value in a range of ways. You can use it, and the data it generates, to boost not just security but productivity, creativity and performance.
Today, physical security is about so much more than locks and bolts. Many modern physical access control systems are IP-based, powered by smart software and able to process large quantities of data. This provides more functionality, flexibility, scalability and opportunities for integration. It also means they’re part of your IT network, so it’s essential they’re protected and upgraded – just like your other IT systems.
From our perspective, a centralised access control system is always preferable – whether you have just two locations in the same town or hundreds spread around the world. Centralising your access control brings a range of far-reaching benefits.
For the people using your building, biometrics can give a better experience compared to an access badge. These days, biometrics are used for both identification and verification – sometimes even both at the same time. Being allowed to enter your building just by scanning your hand or face makes access control more convenient than ever.
Mechanical keys are the simplest form of physical access control and the method many smaller organisations use. Even for a small company, however, using mechanical keys has several flaws and limitations – especially as an organisation gets bigger. Below are just some of the problems presented by using keys.