Security Sales & Integration September 2021 - 33

tenures with Brivo, UniKey Technologies and
Allegion, cites some of the increased security
practices and products that have stuck since 9/11
are the use of metal detectors, increased physical
barriers, camera and surveillance technology,
such as license plate recognition (LPR), aerial
drones, motion sensors and thermal imaging.
" Specific to identity and access control, the
impacts are now felt in the lobby of commercial
buildings and enterprises with the check-in
process at moving from business cards to the
use of driver licenses or passports as identification, "
he says. " There is also a higher level of
investment into artificial intelligence, the use
of smart cards, and an increased acceptance of
biometrics that can 100% be tied back to the
government investment into the public and
private sector on these solutions. "
As an industry, Odess says, this is why stakeholders
need to reflect, document and discuss
the past, as well as be far more aware of the
seminal events of the industry's history to understand
the future.
" I, for one, can sometimes conflate the speed
of change with the influence these events have
on today and tomorrow, " he adds, " but when
you step back and look over the 20 years since
9/11, we have moved way beyond where we
were before it. "
Curse the Unfunded Mandate
To say the adoption of identity, credentialing
and access management (ICAM) products and
services, as mandated by the federal government,
has been slow is a deeply frustrating understatement
for the security industry.
The FIPS 201 standard specifies Personal
Identity Verification (PIV) smart credential
requirements, with the intent to improve the
identification and authentication of federal
employees and contractors for access to federal
facilities and IT systems. FIPS 201 was developed
to satisfy the technical requirements of
HSPD-12 and issued in early 2005.
Although FIPS 201, which was replaced by
FIPS 201-2 in 2013, is credited for helping
advance system interoperability and integration,
systems integrators and manufacturers
alike express concern despite all these years
later very few federal agencies and facilities are
actually being secured to the high degree initially
envisioned.
Far too many doors at a majority of federal
facilities are still being opened essentially
securitysales.com
with legacy proximity technology, says Mark
Allen, general manager, premises, for Identiv,
a global provider of physical security and secure
identification.
" I am not completely upbeat on the progress
we've made in the last 10 years because to be
truthful even though I think every federal employee
and contractor has a PIV card - and
some of them are using it to log onto their networks
to be more secure - most aren't using
the card for physical security, even though the
technology is there. The industry has responded
and created technology. "
Those facilities that are deploying the new
hardware oftentimes fail to activate the PIV
card - which was one of the first security
products to be mandated by HSPD-12 - for
access control. Instead, readers are taking a serial
number off the card, similar to proximity
technology, when the intent is to pull a digital
certificate off the PIV card in a three-factor,
PKI fashion.
The reasons for the sluggish adoption are
multiple and include strapped budgets. Typically,
a FIPS 201-certified solution can be two
to three times the price of a proximity-based
system. " I am completely bullish this is the
right thing for federal buildings to really protect
them and protect the people who go in them,
and solve some of the issues that we saw with
9/11, " say Allen. " But the reality is it's been a
long trip and we're not there yet. "
A lack of end-user understanding and a
dearth of education has long hampered adoption
as well, according to Roy Hayes, president
of Virginia-based Systems Engineering, noted
as one of the first systems integrators to add
Systems Engineering (SEI)
demonstrates FIPS 201-compliant
products and solutions at
its headquarters in Sterling, Va.
FIND IT ON THE WEB
The online version of this
story includes a sidebar
with personal reflections of
the 9/11 attacks expressed
by the security professionals
interviewed for this
article. Visit securitysales.
com/911reflect.
SEPTEMBER 2021 Security Sales & Integration 33
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Security Sales & Integration September 2021

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