Most organizations will use many different methods of providing physical access. In this video, you’ll learn about key fobs, smart cards, mobile digital keys, biometrics, and more.
You may have seen an electronic key that is opened using an RFID tag that’s inside of an access badge. But what if you need access to a room, and there aren’t access badges available? In that situation, you might be assigned a key fob. This is a piece of plastic connected to a keychain that also has an RFID tag inside of it and effectively works very similar to an access badge.
Functionally, you would use a key fob exactly the same way as an access badge. You would move the key fob close to the sensor. It will read the RFID tag and then determine if you are allowed or denied access through that door. Here’s a closer view of the key fobs. They’re usually attached to a keychain, which makes it very easy to find them if you ever need to gain access through that door.
Many access badges also include a bit of storage which allows you to keep a certificate on that access badge. This is a cryptographic certificate that has been digitally signed, which means that we can verify the person holding that access badge containing that certificate really is that person.
Often, this badge is used in conjunction with other types of authentication factors. So you would scan your badge, which effectively then scans the certificate inside of the badge. And then it’s very common to use some other type of authentication, such as a personal identification number or biometric to confirm that that certificate is matched with that physical person.
Sometimes this uses an integrated reader that might be inside of a laptop or inside of a badge reader. Or you might use an external reader like the one you see connected via USB. If you’re going to integrate this into a laptop, you need to purchase a laptop that has that badge reader built into the laptop itself. And if you need to log into the laptop, you have to slide in your card and then provide the additional authentication to gain access to that system.
Instead of having a separate badge or a separate set of physical keys, we’re now moving a lot of our keys into our mobile phones. This is a mobile digital key. And the key itself is integrated into the technologies of your mobile phone. These days, we’re seeing more and more uses of mobile digital keys.
There are many cars that allow you to start the car or unlock the doors with keys that are on your phone. If you visit a hotel or have a relatively new office, you may be able to unlock doors with your phone. And you might even be able to lock or unlock the doors that you have at home using a mobile digital key that’s on your phone.
Because this is something that is on your phone, there are additional authentication factors that make this digital key more secure. For example, you need to unlock your phone to gain access to use the mobile digital key. And that unlocking process is effectively the additional authentication.
But there may be times when you don’t have access to an electronic lock. It might be too expensive to install some type of electronic access. Or you may need access to a room that should never be locked electronically. You should always have a physical lock available in case you happen to lose power.
These physical keys are often kept in a single cabinet. And there’s someone responsible for checking out the key and checking it back in again. It’s not unusual for you to have to provide identification. They take your license and put it into the cabinet while you’re using the key. And you have to return the key to get your identification back.
Here’s one of these cabinets that have all of these keys inside for the different doors. You can see that they each have numbers so that you’re able to check out the appropriate key for the access that you need. And this is where you might leave your ID so that, when you return the key, you can also retrieve your ID.
One of the best ways to physically ensure that the person who is authenticating really is that person is by using biometrics. Biometrics uses some type of physical part of your person, turns that into a digital key, and stores that information for later reference. For example, you can scan aspects of your fingerprint to create a digital representation of your fingerprint.
The system isn’t storing a picture of your actual fingerprint. It’s creating a mathematical model of your fingerprint, and that becomes the key. This makes it very easy to tie back a specific fingerprint to a specific person. And it also makes it very difficult to change that or fool it in some way. Since fingerprints are relatively unique, it would be unusual for someone to have exactly the same fingerprint as someone else.
Not every form or implementation of biometrics is as secure as any other. So you may want to look at the type of scanners you’re using for biometrics or the way that you’re implementing biometrics in order to make sure that it is as secure as possible.
One of the most accurate forms of biometrics is a retina scanner. A retina scanner looks at the capillaries that are in the back of your eye. This is a unique characteristic between individuals, and it’s one of the best biometric measurements that you can use. Another type of biometric security would be a fingerprint scanner. We’ve seen these on phones, on laptops, and even to access different doors. And it’s a great way to provide biometrics using something that’s very easy to gain access to, your fingers.
Another type of biometric measurement uses your entire palm with a palm print scanner. This measures the size and the shape of your hand to create that biometric authentication. If you own a mobile phone, you’ve probably used Facial Recognition Technology, or FRT, to be able to use your face to unlock your phone. This uses a laser dot projector which looks at many different points of your face to create a 3D facial map.
This uses a 3D model of your face to create that biometric key. And once that’s stored, you can apply that facial recognition technology to anywhere where you may need to be authenticated. This might be on your phone, or it might be the door of the data center. This is another relatively secure method of biometrics because we found that there is about a 1 in 1 million false acceptance rate, which is a very strong biometric measurement.
Another biometric measurement that you might still see being used is voice recognition technology. This uses your voice to identify yourself, and it’s usually trained by speaking a number of different phrases into the scanning device. Your style and method of speaking is stored in a biometric form. And that is referenced again when you use your voice to gain access to a system.
During the verification process, you’re commonly using a different set of phrases than the ones that were used to train with. But because you’ve created this model of your voice, the voice recognition technology can determine whether that’s you speaking or someone else. Although voice recognition is something that you might still run into, it is not the strongest biometric security that you’ll find. And it’s very common to see this combined with other factors of authentication. We also have to keep in mind that our voice can change depending on our health. And sometimes you may not be able to use your voice to authenticate.
One of the best physical security tools, and one that is often overlooked, is the lighting that we use. As it gets darker in an area, it becomes less secure. So having more lights tends to make an area much more secure. It also makes it easier for our other security tools to be able to work properly. So when we have more lights, we’re able to get better images from the cameras that we’re using for security.
There’s many different styles of lights and many different ways to illuminate different areas. And if your focus is on video surveillance, you may need enough light to be able to read license tags that are on a car or be able to see faces so that you can do facial recognition.
And if you’re walking into a secure building, you’re probably going through a metal detector or what’s technically known as a magnetometer. This is a passive scanning process. You simply walk through this particular piece of equipment, and it will be able to identify if there’s any metal on your person. This obviously won’t be able to catch anything that is not metal. For example, if you’re carrying a weapon that is ceramic, you won’t be able to identify that using a magnetometer.