Convergence: Yea or Nay?

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Convergence: Yea or Nay?

7/1/2008

By Matt Villano

The Computrace service, which Maciel refers to as "LoJack for laptops," ensures the physical security of the Golden West machines. This program, which resides deep in the bios level of the computer, kicks in the moment the computer is taken off the school network, and automatically sends a signal back to a central server, reporting on the equipment's whereabouts. When a user reports a laptop as missing, authorities can use this signal to pinpoint the location of the machine. "Luckily, we haven't had to test the system with a real-world case yet," Maciel says. "When we do, we'll be ready."

STRENGTH IN SILOS

Despite clear benefits such as cost and improved efficiency, not every higher ed institution has embraced the idea of intertwining data and physical security. Many holdout administrators say they support the idea of keeping the two silos of security separate, for maximum efficiency of each type of security initiative. Yet curiously, many of these campuses do indeed make use of logical data for significant impact on physical security-- accomplishments that certainly support arguments for the benefits of convergence.

At Louisiana State University, for instance, the IT organization worked closely with the Office of Public Safety and Risk Management in the design of an Emergency Operations Center (EOC) on campus. (The IT organization also is part of the EOC operation, in the event of an emergency.) Brian Nichols, the university's chief IT security and policy officer, points out that representatives of his department also provided support to the EOC in the selection of the text-messaging system at LSU, rolled out specifically for the purpose of alerting the campus in the event of an emergency.

Recently, LSU technologists discussed implementing sirens (from Whalen Engineering), to augment the school's existing physical security/emergency notification systems. Like traditional fire alarms, these sirens would alert campus constituents in the event of an emergency. Nichols says these devices will "spread the load" of notification across a number of modes (some already physically oriented) and thus lessen the reliance on other, more IT-enabled means such as e-mail, voicemail, and text messaging.

"The important point to remember is that institutions need to ensure that all aspects of security are integrated in such a way as to support the institution's mission," Nichols says. "Maintaining the status quo actually means falling behind; physical and IT security must be proactively managed, due to the ever-changing nature of technology and threats."

At Dartmouth College, technologists have made the clear-cut decision to keep data and physical security separate. There, to handle data security, IT experts recently built an authentication strategy around eTokens from Aladdin Knowledge Systems. This system requires every user to insert a USB token and provide a password before he or she can access the network and the data it contains. PKI Administrator Scott Rea says the initiative has virtually eliminated data security breaches. But Rea and other campus technologists are hesitant to expand this kind of initiative to include physical security. In almost every department, Dartmouth still relies on proximity cards from AccessID to control building access and other forms of physical security. Rea says that at some point, he and his colleagues considered combining the two systems, but resisted because of high turnover on the proximity cards. "Users were losing them so frequently, it became a question of: How safe would a converged system really be?" he remembers. "In the end, keeping the data and physical security efforts separate ensured greater safety in both spheres."