Access Control Systems in Smart Buildings

Published Jul 15, 2021

Physical access control limits access

Access control systems are a critical component in smart buildings as security has become more important. The access control system is essential for life safety and is interfaced to the fire alarm system to facilitate building egress during life safety evacuations. Access control systems must integrate with several other smart building systems (HVAC, video surveillance, lighting, etc.) as well as share data with business systems, such as human resources, time, and attendance.

Physical access control limits access to campuses, buildings, rooms and physical IT assets. Access control system solutions determine how users are allowed to interact with specific resources. A robust access control system gives an organization the ability to manage, restrict, and monitor user activity while protecting specific areas. A robust access control system will intercept every request for access through network protocols and access devices, determine whether to grant or deny the request based on precise rules, and log both accepted and rejected access attempts.

To secure a facility, organizations use electronic access control systems that rely on user credentials, access card readers, auditing and reports to track employee access to restricted business locations and proprietary areas. Some of these systems incorporate access control panels to restrict entry to rooms and buildings, as well as alarms and lockdown capabilities, to prevent unauthorized access or operations.

What are the three types of Access Control Systems?

Access control systems perform identification authentication and authorization of users and entities by evaluating required login credentials that can include passwords, personal identification numbers, security tokens, biometric scans or other authentication factors. Sometimes we need multifactor authentication to provide higher security levels, which requires two or more authentication factors.

There are three classifications of access control systems:

Mandatory access control (MAC): it is the highest level of access control reserved primarily for areas which we need highest level of security. Due to the nature of these facilities, they must have stronger access controls since they house valuable resources and are often targeted by offenders. The core security of MAC is based on a security policy which is defined by the administrator of the environment and end users have nothing to say in the security policy. Essentially a policy is set in place to create classifications of access for users and then the users are assigned access to facilities based on their individual classification.

Discretionary Access Control (DAC): Provides the lowest level of access control as stated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). This is an access control method in which owners or administrators of the protected areas set the policies defining who or what is authorized to have the access. Many of these systems enable administrators to limit the propagation of access rights. This allows the owner to grant access based on a need to know basis to a user who can perform any of the following four tasks; pass information, grant privilege to other users, modify security setting for other users, and change rules for access. A common criticism of DAC systems is a lack of centralized control.

Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): This is the most frequently requested type of access controls. RBAC systems assign access to users accessed based upon their role versus assigning it to an individual user. Since access is assigned based on the user’s role the level of access depends on what level the user is based on the organizational hierarchy.

Therefore, by choosing right system, it is possible to boost the safety of the site since we can monitor cameras for possible accident areas like blind corners.

Sometimes we need integrated systems for higher level securities and for developing our old systems and we need to consider for possible compatibilities to lower the development costs. Hanatech can provide you information according to your needs. Also we can boost the security of your current system. Please follow us on next posts and contact us for more information!

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