If your business has valuable assets or sensitive information, controlling who has access to them is essential. An effective access control system can help you do this and keep your business safe.
Access control is restricting who has access to systems and data based on their authenticated identity. It involves two main components: authentication and authorization.
Identify Unauthorized Access
Access control is an essential part of business security that helps minimize the risk of unauthorized access to physical and electronic systems. Limiting access to information, methods, and devices mitigates the risks of data theft, fraud, and cybersecurity breaches.
Access control, like access control for business in Huntsville, can be implemented through software, biometrics devices, or physical access to a controlled space. They verify a user’s identity, grant permission to enter an area or resource and monitor real-time activity.
Multiple types of access control exist, including rules-based, role-based, and attribute-based models. Each model offers different levels of granularity and context-specific security.
Prevent Fraud
Access control systems can help prevent fraud by limiting an individual’s ability to do fraudulent activities. These internal controls can be used to reduce losses, improve customer experience and protect sensitive and confidential data.
A business’s most valuable assets – financial data, customer information, and personnel records – are the most likely targets for fraud. To avoid this, ensure all employees are adequately trained on handling these items and what to do during an attack or theft.
Authorization is giving individuals access to company information based on their authenticated identity. This involves evaluating identity attributes, entitlements, consents, and additional contextual information to make informed decisions.
Deter Criminal Activity
When access control systems are used correctly, they can deter criminal activity from occurring. This is because they detect people unfamiliar with the premises and cannot provide identification before allowing them entry.
They also allow for tracking of who has entered and exited restricted areas. This is ideal for gathering evidence if an incident should occur.
Aside from identifying potential criminals, these systems can also help keep them out of your business and building. This will reduce theft of equipment and supplies and damage to the property.
CPTED (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design) is an approach that involves designing buildings and public spaces so that legitimate users feel safe and crime is less likely to happen. This includes locating gathering areas to places that provide natural surveillance and removing obstructions like signage that block views of criminals and their activities.
Prevent Damage to Property
Keeping a record of access to your premises can help you detect any damage to property and alert the police. This can include broken doors and windows and damage to water pipes.
Businesses have valuable assets such as equipment, computers, and data banks that can be a theft risk. By restricting access to these areas, you can prevent this.
By controlling who can use these areas, you can also create accountability within your staff. This can deter theft, especially in high-risk areas such as doctor’s offices or schools.
Prevent Damage to Data
Access control – a set of rules that identify, authenticate and authorize users – can prevent data damage by limiting access to information. Unauthorized access to confidential data can lead to leaks of intellectual property, exposure of customers’ and employees’ personal information, and loss of corporate funds.
Crowley says any organization whose employees access information from a network-based system needs access control, regardless of whether the data is hosted on-premise or in the cloud. It also is crucial for organizations with employees who work remotely.
Robust access control should require long passwords that include letters, numbers, and special characters. It should also require frequent password changes, educate users about using terms that are unlikely to be guessed by a brute force attack, and discourage the sharing of passwords across systems.
