Principles of secure access control systems
Securing assets and premises while letting authorized people easily enter is the main task of your access control system.
While an access control reader is the most visible part of your system, it is also vital to guaranteeing your security. As a result, your reader should be robust enough to withstand possible vandalism. By making it a keypad reader you can also easily satisfy the EU’s NIS2 directive on secure 2FA: personalized user pin codes will satisfy NIS2’s prescription for an additional authentication step.
Your devices’ country of origin has recently grown into another concern. Who had access to your devices during their manufacturing or delivery? Were covert components added to compromise them? These issues and questions are why we proudly declare that every Idesco reader is manufactured in Europe, following European manufacturing standards.
Obviously, a secure card technology will encrypt data sent between cards and readers. Mobile access also highly secures this data behind encryption that is no less robust. Beyond the reader, user identification data forwarded to a host is increasingly being secured by OSDPv2.
An important, common factor in any secure technology are its security keys. These digital keys are programmed to let readers and cards recognize each other. In turn, they prevent unauthorized copying (or cloning) of access cards. Yet an unavoidable consequence of these security keys is that their ownership must be agreed upon before your readers and cards are coded with them. Why?
While proprietary technologies can be secure, they also force you to purchase from the same manufacturer in the future. By contrast, open standard manufacturers may still prevent you switching to another by withholding your readers’ and cards security keys if you decide to end cooperation with them.
That is why we agree upon your ownership of your security keys beforehand. As the manufacturer of secure, open standard MIFARE DESFire readers, we will assign them to a third party you designate only if you choose to. Our customers may also keep their security keys themselves, to program their readers and cards themselves, if they prefer. Or, we can manage your security keys in accordance with the highest information security regulations. Our ISO 27001 information security certificate is both proof of and template for the high level information security procedures our entire organization follows.
Should you consider strengthening access control security at your sites? We invite you to download a short checklist below: Secure access control system: How can I strengthen my overall system security?
Let’s improve your overall security together!