Security is not just for the battlefield

Security is also important on base, which needs to guard against potential intruders, information leakage and interference with critical systems. Many specialized access control products have evolved to
meet the need.

The worst shooting ever to take place on an American military base

• The Fort Hood shooting was a mass shooting that took place on November 5, 2009, at Fort Hood, the most populous U.S. military installation in the world, located just outside Killeen, Texas.
• In the course of the shooting, a single gunman killed 13 people and wounded 29 others.

• In other attack, Abdulhakim Muhammad, born Carlos Bledsoe, is accused of shooting and killing one soldier and wounding another outside a recruiting center in Little Rock, Ark. Muhammad, an Islam convert, told The Associated Press the shooting was retaliation for U.S. military action in the Middle East.

Nowhere is access control more important than in military bases

Buildings must be highly secured, restricted to key personnel, and closely controlled, especially within areas containing confidential documentation, secure data or computer equipment. With a large number of permanent and temporary staff, extensive internal base traffic, the management of people entering the base and the ensuing traffic flow can sometimes become a real challenge.

Primary/secondary controllers can put military
bases and people at risk

• With a primary/secondary controller, only the primary controller has intelligence.
• Each secondary door is connected to a dumb interface module.
• If the master controller fails, it degrades all doors it is supposed to control.
• They will all be left locked or open – whatever their state may be when the system fails.

Multi-door controllers can lead to
widespread failure

• Multi-door controllers set permissions for a group of 2, 4, 8 or
even more doors.
• It is like a master controller for that particular group.
• As with the primary/secondary setup, if the controller goes down, the entire array of doors is vulnerable.
• Most current systems use this inadequate approach.

Millennium Group intelligent controllers overcome these problems

• With a distributed system, every control panel is smart.
• Each card reader is connected to an intelligent controller.
• Each door has its own database.
• Each door makes its own decisions.
• If a problem occurs, it affects one and only one door.
• Widespread failure is virtually impossible.

Are You Ready for HSPD-12/FIPS 201
Access Control?

Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 (HSPD-12) addresses the security threat of physical access. FIPS 201, an NIST publication which embodies HSPD-12, also recommends physical building access changes. Last month, the Security Industry Association and Smart Card Alliance held a forum in Washington on Physical Access Control to discuss these changes.

To have interoperable cards, the GSA -- with the help of the NIST -- has to ensure that multiple vendors have implemented Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 201 and its myriad of special publications in a way that makes it possible to use a given card on multiple systems between agencies. This is a large task all by itself. In the logical computer environment, once the readers and cards are interoperable, the credentials (cards) can be issued. There may be some software needs related to interoperability to be resolved.

In the physical access world, it's a different story. Some physical access systems don't talk to IT systems at all. The newer systems that do talk to IT aren't compatible with the credential information required for FIPS 201. Some agencies don't have physical access systems at all and other have systems that are owned by their building operators. To make it all worse, the funding for physical access in many cases is not available.