- Keeping the Bad Guys Out
- What To Protect: Necessity Versus Convenience
- Access Controls: Keys, Numeric Pads, Proximity Sensors, and Beyond
- Logs and Reports: Who Has Been Where, and When?
- Summary Checklist
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What To Protect: Necessity Versus Convenience
Let's start with your office building. All external doors should be lockable. They should unlock automatically when business hours begin, remain unlocked during business hours, and automatically lock after hours. Modern security systems are programmable to lock and unlock doors at predefined intervals. No longer do you have to worry about the office manager running a few minutes late and needing to unlock the doors before everyone else can get in. Automatic systems are much more convenient!
No one likes to be locked out of anything. Unauthorized users may feel resentment: "Why don't they trust me?" Even if it's inconvenient, sometimes it's necessary to protect the data on your network by limiting access to the computer room or even locking the supplies closet. It's just part of risk assessment. My company, a large accounting firm, recently moved our Indianapolis headquarters. In our new building, we chose not to expose the majority of our staff to the risk they would incur from having access to the computer room. If something goes wrong in there, only a limited number of people will be responsible.