Emerging Issues in Access Control

We had some thoughts about a recent post by Kim Kornmaier on the Honeywell Security Channel blog.

One way security integrators and consultants can address the access control issues laid out above is by using products and systems that comply with the Area Control Specification and/or the Access Control Profile (http://psialliance.org/AreaControlOverview.html) from the Physical Security Interoperability Alliance (PSIA).  

PSIA-compliant products all share the same event vocabulary. With the Area Control specification, systems and components from different manufacturers can quickly share data about terminated employees or unauthorized access. Security professionals need only enter the revocation command once; it will then propagate automatically to the other systems. Access privileges across a corporate or campus network are cancelled within minutes, with minimal effort, greatly improving security.

A clear common vocabulary across compliant components also makes it easier to integrate IT security and physical security systems to address potential blended threats. In addition, that commonality means consultants and integrators can add vital new components into legacy security solutions more quickly. That’s because they only need to map the legacy systems’ communication to one PSIA-compliant vocabulary, not many different interfaces.

Finally, because the PSIA specifications are created by leading industry vendors, the specifications reflect industry demand, including support for cloud, wireless and mobile security solutions.

Vendors like HID, Ingersoll Rand (Schlage), Kastle Systems, Honeywell, Mercury, Proximex, and ASSA ABLOY are all actively implementing these specs into products. Inovonics has already introduced a PSIA-compliant access control wireless gateway, and we expect to see more commercially available solutions soon. So the industry is well at work on meeting these emerging issues for end users.