ASIS 2010, II: New solutions to new -- and old -- security problems

that is used to grant entry to the door access system. The concept, she says, is to do more, but without adding more things for a user to carry. The second issue is security. Proximity cards have been successfully cloned, and Toscano notes that “you can buy equipment online to duplicate a prox card for about $60 to $100.”

HID Global. HID positions itself as a firm that can help organizations bridge the gap between physical access and logical access. The planned acquisition of ActivIdentity underscores that, but the point was accentuated at a luncheon seminar in which HID Global president Denis Hebert and CTO Selva Selvaratnam presented a look at what they called the “mega trends” in access control. One of the things that Hebert and Selvaratnam said was that the security industry has to separate the credential from the technology. Traditionally, the security industry has looked at the card as the credential, but Hebert said the credential used for access and authentication is not the card. The credential, he said, can be placed onto any appropriate technology. That technology might be a card, or it might be a phone, or a chip, or any form factor. The credential also does not have to specific to a single access environment. That same credential used to get you into the building could also be used to log you into your computer, or even log you into your website.

Hirsch Electronics. Hirsch Electronics is about converged access control. The company announced at the show that Hirsch’s Velocity security management system can be used to provision smart cards to control both building access and computer/logical access. Kohl notes that this converged access control solution from Hirsch is based upon a joint project between Hirsch and ActivIdenity — and that ActivIdentity is now an acquisition target of HID Global.

Matrix Systems. The company’s president, James Young, admitted to Kohl that his company has been a bit quiet. The Ohio-based company has had a loyal following for its access control management solution among some top airports and large industrials firms, and has traditionally sold direct to end users. Now, says Young, the company plans to grow its business by going through the systems integrator channel, and they are actively recruiting the right channel partners. Per Young, the fact that they worked direct for so many years puts them in a unique position to understand the support needs that their integrator channel will have.

Brivo Systems. Brivo Systems has been in the business of providing access control in the software-as-a-service model, and the company said that it has been experiencing 45 percent year-over-year growth in this area. One of the hot growth areas for the company in the SaaS arena has been with retail customers. At ASIS, the company also noted that its ACS OnSite Aparato access system has earned FIPS 201 approval. Aparato 3.0.2 (the newest version) adds an alarm control panel and has the “swipe and show” interface, which keeps the last 8 persons who have badged into the building displayed on the user interface for quick review by the security operator. They have also announced a deep integration with Exacq’s video management system such that video surveillance is imported directly to Aparato upon a user-definable event (an alarm, a door accessed, etc.).

PlaSec. PlaSec is also heralding its integration with Exacq, according to PlaSec’s Kevin Wine. The company’s product line supports much of the feature sets on Mercury hardware, but Kohl notes that the hot aspect of this company is how it handles its databases. “The data structure is LDAP, and that relational directory means the company can directly share the same data that’s in company’s HR databases, as opposed to having to occasionally sync a physical access database with the HR database and the IT users database,” he writes.