Access Control Systems: What Are They and Which Type Is Right for Your Business?

Lim­it­ing access to your premis­es, data, and sen­si­tive infor­ma­tion is cru­cial to secu­ri­ty and pri­va­cy. An access con­trol sys­tem is essen­tial to any com­pre­hen­sive secu­ri­ty pro­to­col, ensur­ing that only autho­rized indi­vid­u­als can access cer­tain areas or sen­si­tive infor­ma­tion.

As tech­nol­o­gy con­tin­ues to advance, these types of sys­tems have also expand­ed. At Pro­tec­tion Plus, we want to pro­vide you with a com­plete under­stand­ing of access con­trol sys­tems and their dis­trict fea­tures and ben­e­fits so that you can feel con­fi­dent in deter­min­ing what you need for your busi­ness.

What is an Access Control System?

An access con­trol sys­tem (ACS) is a secu­ri­ty tech­nique that reg­u­lates who or what can access your resources (dig­i­tal or phys­i­cal). It’s a fun­da­men­tal con­cept in secu­ri­ty that reduces risk to your busi­ness.

ACS per­forms iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, authen­ti­ca­tion, and autho­riza­tion of its users by eval­u­at­ing their required login cre­den­tials. It can include pass­words, per­son­al iden­ti­fi­ca­tion num­bers (PINs), bio­met­rics scans, and secu­ri­ty tokens.

You can­not over­state the val­ue of an ACS in today’s busi­ness envi­ron­ment. It helps pro­tect sen­si­tive infor­ma­tion, reduces the risk of unau­tho­rized access, pro­tects employ­ee safe­ty, and helps your busi­ness com­ply with reg­u­la­to­ry require­ments requir­ing restrict­ed access.

Types of Access Control Systems

Choos­ing the right access con­trol sys­tem for your busi­ness is cru­cial, as they come in var­i­ous forms. The most com­mon types include:

Discretionary Access Control (DAC)

This type of sys­tem offers the own­er com­plete con­trol over who is allowed access. Each per­son has per­mis­sions sets that reflect their need to access cer­tain areas or data.

While it’s user-friend­ly, it’s less secure than oth­er types because it relies heav­i­ly on the dis­cre­tion of the infor­ma­tion admin­is­tra­tor.

Mandatory Access Control (MAC)

MAC is more strict, using a cen­tral­ized author­i­ty to deter­mine who gets access to loca­tions or infor­ma­tion.

Orga­ni­za­tions use it to han­dle sen­si­tive data. With­in these sys­tems, users receive clas­si­fi­ca­tion by secu­ri­ty clear­ance and data is orga­nized accord­ing to sen­si­tiv­i­ty.

Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)

Role-Based Access Con­trol, also known as non-dis­cre­tionary access con­trol, is a pop­u­lar approach to reg­u­lat­ing resource access based on the roles of users with­in an orga­ni­za­tion.

In an RBAC sys­tem, access per­mis­sions are assigned to posi­tions rather than to indi­vid­ual users. As a result, when employ­ees are assigned new roles with­in the orga­ni­za­tion, their access is auto­mat­i­cal­ly adjust­ed to match the require­ments of their new posi­tions.

Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC)

These sys­tems use attrib­ut­es to build poli­cies that deter­mine how much access each employ­ee should have.

These may be user attrib­ut­es (such as age, role, etc.), envi­ron­men­tal attrib­ut­es (such as time of access, IP loca­tion, etc.), and resource attrib­ut­es (such as own­er, clas­si­fi­ca­tion lev­el, etc).

Rule-Based Access Control

This ACS type lim­its access based on spe­cif­ic rules. It’s sim­i­lar to MAC in that it’s cen­tral­ly gov­erned, often used for net­work­ing requir­ing high lev­els of secu­ri­ty, and employs strict con­trols over user access via a sys­tem admin­is­tra­tor.

Selecting the Right Access Control System

Choos­ing an ACS that caters to your business’s unique require­ments is vital. Con­sid­er the fol­low­ing as you nav­i­gate which unit will serve your orga­ni­za­tion the best:

• Assess Your Busi­ness Needs: This involves under­stand­ing the nature of your busi­ness, deter­min­ing what resources need to be pro­tect­ed, the lev­el of secu­ri­ty required, and how much flex­i­bil­i­ty and scal­a­bil­i­ty you desire.
• Size and Com­plex­i­ty: A small busi­ness might not require an intri­cate sys­tem with high lev­els of secu­ri­ty. In con­trast, a large enter­prise may need a more sophis­ti­cat­ed sys­tem to han­dle com­plex user roles and per­mis­sions.

  Under­stand­ing the depth of your secu­ri­ty needs is essen­tial when choos­ing the right sys­tem.

• Reg­u­la­to­ry Com­pli­ance: Cer­tain reg­u­la­tions can dic­tate that you need spe­cif­ic types of access con­trol, depend­ing on your indus­try.

  For exam­ple, health­care orga­ni­za­tions must com­ply with HIPAA reg­u­la­tions, which require a sys­tem that pro­vides detailed user access reports.

• Inte­gra­tion With Exist­ing Sys­tems: It’s impor­tant not to over­look how an ACS will inte­grate with your exist­ing secu­ri­ty sys­tems. Com­pat­i­bil­i­ty enhances secu­ri­ty and effi­cien­cy, while incom­pat­i­bil­i­ty can hin­der it.
• Bud­get Con­straints: The costs of access con­trol sys­tems can vary. There­fore, it’s essen­tial to con­sid­er how much you can rea­son­ably afford to spend. Bal­ance your need for secu­ri­ty with the mon­ey you’re will­ing to invest.

  Don’t for­get to fac­tor in poten­tial expens­es like main­te­nance and equip­ment upgrades.

Technology Trends in ACS Systems

Part of being a busi­ness own­er is know­ing which tech­no­log­i­cal com­po­nents (1) add val­ue to your estab­lish­ment and (2) pro­vide a high lev­el of secu­ri­ty for your phys­i­cal and dig­i­tal assets. It includes tak­ing note of:

• Mobile Access Con­trols: You can man­age most sys­tems via smart­phones and oth­er mobile devices. It offers con­ve­nience, pro­vid­ing access when and where you need it, but requires addi­tion­al lay­ers of secu­ri­ty to ensure your infor­ma­tion remains secure.
• Bio­met­rics Sys­tems: These sys­tems offer extra pro­tec­tion by requir­ing a fin­ger­print, facial recog­ni­tion, or oth­er bio inputs to access your assets. While more secure, it’s impor­tant to note that these sys­tems are typ­i­cal­ly more expen­sive than tra­di­tion­al ones.
• Cloud-Based Sys­tems: It offers real-time mon­i­tor­ing and man­age­ment of entrances and exits from any­where. They’re pop­u­lar as they tend to reduce the need for on-site hard­ware.
• Inter­net of Things (IoT) Com­pat­i­bil­i­ty: IoT devices, which are phys­i­cal objects that exchange data with oth­er sys­tems, are every­where.

  There­fore, it’s under­stand­able that many busi­ness own­ers want their ACS to be com­pat­i­ble with IoT devices to ensure a seam­less oper­a­tion from begin­ning to end — espe­cial­ly in smart busi­ness envi­ron­ments.

Effective Use and Maintenance

After select­ing the type of access con­trol sys­tem, know­ing how to imple­ment it is essen­tial to suc­cess. It involves pro­fes­sion­al­ly installing a sys­tem, train­ing your staff on how to use it, and per­form­ing reg­u­lar main­te­nance.

It ensures that your sys­tem will oper­ate smooth­ly and remain secure as you con­tin­ue your day-to-day oper­a­tions.

Choose the Best Security Option with Protection Plus

The right access con­trol sys­tem for your busi­ness will depend on many fac­tors, includ­ing your secu­ri­ty require­ments, bud­get, busi­ness size, and any gov­ern­ing reg­u­la­tions you must fol­low.

At Pro­tec­tion Plus, we care­ful­ly assess your needs to ensure you feel con­fi­dent when choos­ing an access con­trol sys­tem. We offer secu­ri­ty that grows and evolves with your busi­ness, pre­vent­ing unau­tho­rized access and breach­es.

For more infor­ma­tion about ACS or to sched­ule a com­pli­men­ta­ry con­sul­ta­tion, con­nect with us at your ear­li­est con­ve­nience or give us a call at 1–855-365‑7587.