Welcome to the Brave New World

Nov 1, 2000 12:00 PM, Paul Caplan

You'll notice that along with your magazine this month is a new publication, iSecurity, The Integration of Physical and Logical Security Systems. The commercial security industry is just beginning a sea-change in both technology and philosophy, and iSecurity has been introduced to give you a map to help steer your organization's security operation through these new waters.

As you will recall, one trip through the aisles at September's ASIS exhibition gave evidence of the growing integration trends between the facility IT and security departments. Most high-end digital video systems introduced this year have a browser component and have put forth digital compression technologies to capitalize on broadband bandwidth. Fully integrated access control packages are incorporating both biometric and smart card technologies designed to be enterprise-class. These systems aim to create a seamless security environment, controlling access for both the physical facilities as well as the organization's information and the networks on which they travel. The addition of PKI encryption capabilities to this smart card can further extend the security functionality to encompass an organization's B2B commerce initiatives.

So where does that leave the role of the traditional security professional? While clearly the world of logical security has a vocabulary and history distinct from security director role, the underlying philosophy of letting the right folks in, keeping the bad guys out and protecting valuable assets remains. In fact, it is the time-tested securities strategies developed since the industrial revolution that are precisely what is needed to cope with the information revolution explosion. And that is what the security director brings to the table.

This first edition of iSecurity will lay the foundation for you to enter this "brave new world" of security. Incorporating the real-world applications features for which Access Control & Security Systems Integration is known, iSecurity also surveys today's landscape of the technologies and products emerging to serve this market. iSecurity is also being sent to more than 18,000 IT and network professionals to give them a feel for how the security industry looks at the challenges facing businesses today. I encourage you to pass your copy of iSecurity on to your corporate IT/IS department managers.

In 2001 we will be publishing four issues of iSecurity. Response from both readers and advertisers on the concept has been impressive and we certainly have identified a real information need among you. Please let us know how we're doing and what you would like to see in future issues of iSecurity.

Now that we're just about through the trade show season, if you're like me, you're trying to catch up with the pile of paperwork and clear the deck for the upcoming holidays. This month's cornucopia of stories (just had to throw in the Thanksgiving reference) is just the kind of information needed as we look toward next year's challenges.

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© 2012 Penton Media Inc.

This month in Access Control

• Targeting The Customer
• Electronic Pedigrees
• One Hero Among Many
• Who? What? When? Where? Why?
• More from September's issue