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Case Study

Biometric Access Control

The regular prox-card system does not provide access to the inner sanctum, Joe's actual office suite: He must enter through a door equipped with a biometric lock and handle that use scan thermal imaging technology

July 21, 2008 —

JOE'S OFFICE

Joe needs to protect his proprietary research. You're looking at just one of his defenses. Click HERE to see a diagram of the office or click on any of Joe's other security measures.

The regular prox-card system does not provide access to the inner sanctum, Joe's actual office suite: He must enter through a door equipped with a biometric lock and handle that use scan thermal imaging technology. The handle measures the temperature differences between the peaks and valleys of his fingerprints and creates recognition points.

Unlike typical optical reader locks, "we're not storing actual fingerprints, and we're not leaving a fingerprint when you access the lock," says Gary Kut, director of sales at Tychi Systems, a Salem, N.H., company that makes biometric locks using the technology.

Scan thermal imaging, a relative newcomer to the security lock arena, is more commonly used in engineering to check the density of materials such as a bridge girder or a small part for the Space Shuttle, to make sure materials are being made to performance specifications, Kut says. It has also been used by emergency rescue teams to locate avalanche victims.

The demand for biometric locks continues to grow as prices come down and companies find new uses for keyless access, but security is the number-one concern. Almost half of all company data breaches are not the result of a hacker but of a lost or stolen laptop, memory device, PDA, memory stick, CD or DVD, according to a survey by Vontu, a security software firm now part of Symantec. More than 60 percent of those incidents are caused by an "insider threat" -an employee.

"Even an executive working on confidential information is not apt to pick up keys and lock the door to go down the hall" for a few minutes, Kut says. "It takes seconds for someone to go in the door, grab a PDA and walk out with it." Even if the intruder has a registered fingerprint, the locks keep an access log of the last 2,000 entrants. The log registers the entrant's name and the date and time he entered and left the room. The price of a BioKnob bio-lock system ranges from $599 to $699 at Tychi Systems, depending on the style of the door handle, but the technology is the same. All hardware and software is included in the lock. No special installation is required, according to the company.