Getting to grips with access control
Video transcript:
Hello, I’m Buzz Coates, Norbain’s Security Solutions Specialist
and as part of the Norbain Basics video series,
today, I'm going to talk about the three basic levels of access control.
Electronic access control came out of necessity really,
because if we go back in time,
traditionally, we used to lock all our doors with keys.
And of course, if you lost a key, that could be a bit of a problem,
because you'd have to change the locks.
And of course, people say, ”well, that's easy”,
what we'll do is we'll make all the keys the same for all the locks.
Only trouble is, you lose one key, you are really compromised.
So from a security point of view,
typically the best way to manage your system
was to have lots of doors with lots of different keys.
The only trouble is, that became an administrative nightmare.
And with access control, it basically comes down to three types:
Standalone, PC based/distributed, or door entry.
Which one you choose will depend on a number of factors.
These will include things like risk, the contents that you are securing.
The area, which you are situated will depend on that as well.
But also from the point of view of the access control side,
it's about the number of users, the number of doors or portals, etc,
the traffic flow, etc, and how complicated the system may well be.
And of course, the application.
On the standalone system, typically, we'd be talking about very few doors -
maybe one or two, and very limited users.
Because it means it's not complicated.
And typically, in this environment, you don't really want reporting,
because typically, most standalone systems don't really give you any reporting,
or if they do very, very little.
These systems are usually simple and inexpensive.
And from the point of view of administration, very simple to set up,
because you're only normally talking to one device
A couple of good examples of this would be
your ski locker room when you go on holiday.
Typically, to access your skis and your boots, you have to put in a pin
‘1234’ - hopefully not all using that number.
But yes, simple code to allow you to access the ski locker room.
Another one would be maybe in a retail area
whereby you want to have a separate area for store room and your customers,
it could well be a simple pin pad is used there -
like I say one code shared, maybe by six or seven users
enabled you to gain access..
And please don't always think that it is just a key pad or a PIN pad that is used.
Sometimes a small system may be just one door.
And actually you want to use fobs or cards.
And that can be achieved as well.
Now, of course, we would never typically use this
in a medium to high secure site.
As the security requirements increase,
we tend to move up with i.e; number of users, number of doors
and like I say higher security risk,
we tend to then move up to a PC based system.
It could well be that people turning up on site
and not all working at the same time.
It could well be your office staff work from nine till five.
You may have a manufacturing site at a business where it’s shift work
six til two, two til ten -
we then start to have a complicated system,
whereby a PC to set up the system is very, very useful.
I would imagine most engineers setting up a standalone system
on 10 doors with hundreds of users would be scratching their head
in disbelief if that system was sold like that.
A PC based system offers many advantages,
especially when it comes to adding users -
maybe access in visitors to the system, etc, etc.
That can all be done from one point and then distributed across the network.
So as you pass new cards, new users, etc.
that is done real time across the network.
So from the point of view reporting,
once we have that system put in place,
we can tell where someone was, at what time,
what door they access, what door they exit, etc, etc.
if we choose to do so.
A PC based system also offers greater flexibility
So if you want to have a perimeter entrance,
or you want to have restricted areas to some people, but not others,
that's something that can easily be achieved within a PC based solution.
And when we talk about solutions in this area,
we'll probably talking about two factor authentication
where maybe you want to use tokens and pin,
or it could well be you want to use a card fob and biometrics.
Or even maybe biometrics and mobile credential.
We see PC based systems used quite widely in industry,
government buildings, education, manufacturing, offices, etc, etc, etc.
The final one is door entry.
And this splits into two groups.
It can be an intercom - i.e. for gaining access to a car park and at offices.
Or it could be used as an intercom for apartments.
In both these environments people who do have access to these systems
will typically use a fob to gain entrance.
Visitors, though, will obviously press the call button
to get through to someone to talk to.
That can be just audio or it can be video and audio.
Application examples could be visitors turning up for an interview at offices,
or for delivery drivers to logistics centres,
and again in those luxury apartments where we see concierge being used.
We could have intercoms there as well.
If you want to find out more,
or head over to Norbain TV on YouTube.
Feel free to check out our video on the benefits of using smart credentials for access control.