Key Emerging Trends In Security And Access Control

Emerging trends include cyber security, mobile, physical access control and The Internet of Things

Viscount 2014/2015 Review and Forecast:

At the enterprise level, spending on physical security continues to be a challenge. Companies have to do more with less, become more strategic about security investments, focus on better situational intelligence, predictive analytics, better utilisation of IT resources and infrastructure, and shift from just integration strategies to more holistic approaches to physical/logical security.

Some key emerging trends that are developing:

• Mobility – information and control from anywhere on any platform.
• Cyber-security influencing product design.
• Cloud infrastructure continues to gain acceptance and drive more innovation.
• Physical access control is evolving from control of barriers to extending identity policies, attributes and privileges to “the door.”
• Smart phones as a platform for derived credentials.
• The Internet of Things will fundamentally alter how we deploy, monitor and control security technologies.   

From the perspective of the access control space, we see physical/logical convergence evolving from integration/interoperability to holistic approaches and native applications. The “door” becomes an IT asset, managed by security, but maintained as an IT asset. Mobility will become more mainstream in a BYOD (“bring your own device”) world, and access control software will finally be de-coupled from proprietary controllers.

As companies deal with new threats in the cyber world, it will impact the way they think, plan and deploy physical security solutions:

• Cyber risk: the asymmetrical threat to physical security.
• The appropriate role of PSIM within an enterprise.
• The role of advanced analytics and insider threat detection.
• Investment strategies for achieving effective enterprise surveillance.
• The role of open-source intelligence in managing converged risk.
• The importance of converged risk management in protecting corporate brand and reputation.

At the enterprise level, physical security will become more and more deeply embedded into the overall corporate IT strategy. Product vendors who do not make their software run more “native” in the IT infrastructure and do not move away from proprietary integrations with IT/logical security applications will be the “losers.”

2014 was a transition year for Viscount, and we still succeeded with enormous growth. We repositioned the company in a new category of physical/logical converged solutions. An entirely new executive team was installed to re-launch the company and drive growth. We launched a new access control solution that completely departs from the conventional system architectures and can be deployed on existing IT infrastructure. We achieved the Federal Government’s FICAM certification as the first and only access control solution that is all software based, receiving a separate designation as FICAM 1302. All of this is setting the stage for 2015, which will be a breakout year. 

The challenges that come with sustaining high growth include continuing to deliver innovative products that solve new security threats, maintaining the highest level of customer satisfaction, while simultaneously challenging an industry to “think differently” about how access control solutions are designed and deployed.

We are entering a whole new era of technology innovation that breaks down decades-old barriers between physical, logical and IT security, creating new opportunities for innovative companies to solve the new security threats in more holistic ways. Emerging technologies in smart phones, wireless mobility, NFC, cloud infrastructure, virtualisation, data mining, identity management and cyber protection will dramatically alter the way physical security products are designed. Fully leveraging existing IT infrastructure investments, third-party applications and platforms will allow the smart physical security providers to produce more “native, IT-centric” solutions faster and at lower price points. The opportunities to create new solutions in a converged world will unlock tremendous growth opportunities for those innovative companies willing to think differently.

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