3.9 Explain the importance of physical security controls. Flashcards
Lighting
Ensure that the facility has proper lighting and that entrances and exits are properly marked, well lit, and accessible. Be sure that the parking area, as well as the pathways to and from it, have adequate lighting to help keep employees and visitors safe when arriving or leaving the facility.
Signs
Ensure that the facility has proper signage labeling all exits so that employees can locate the exits quickly during an emergency.
Signs are also posted to let people know where they are to stay out of a restricted area.
Fencing/Gate/Cage
In highly secure environments, look at putting a fence around the perimeter of the property to deter intruders from trespassing. With a fence around the perimeter, you are forcing anyone who wants access to the facility to go through the main gates, where you implement security checks on everyone entering or leaving the facility.
The height of the fence you put in depends on what your goal is. If you are looking to deter a casual intruder, then you typically go with a fence that is 3 to 4 feet high. Keep in mind that a 4-foot fence is easy to climb, so if you are looking to deter a casual climber, then the recommended fence height is 5 to 7 feet. A determined intruder would have no problem figuring out how to climb a 7-foot fence, so to deter such an intruder, the recommended fence height is 8 feet plus three lines of barbed wire on top tilted at a 45-degree angle toward the intruder.
Security Guards
When you implement the fence around the perimeter of the property, you will need to have a security gate with guards checking anyone entering or leaving the premises. The guards at the gate will verify that a visitor is expected at the facility and then typically give them a “visitor” ID badge to be worn at all times. Employees entering the facility will need to display their employee ID badge to get access to the facility. The ID badge will have the employee name and a photo of the employee.
The guard at the gate will monitor persons leaving the facility and try to ensure that equipment is not being stolen from the facility. Adding a security guard to your physical security plan has the added bonus that ** the guard can identify abnormal activity. ** I talked to one customer who said that if employees are leaving with a laptop or other computer equipment, the equipment is verified at the gate on the way out. The guard verifies the employee is allowed to leave with the equipment and makes them sign out the equipment. This is done to prevent internal theft of company assets.
Depending on the level of security required by your organization, you may have guards positioned throughout the facility ensuring that no security incidents occur. The guards should be trained to watch for ID badges on all persons walking through the facility and to question anyone who does not have an ID badge. At one customer’s facility where I was given a visitor badge and put it on, the gentleman who authorized me to be there said, “No, you have to attach it on your left side.” The organization strictly enforces that all personnel wear the badge in the same place so that security can easily see the badge.
Alarms
Many security devices today such as locking systems,
proximity readers, and video surveillance equipment can trigger alarms. These alarms can also be sent to a mobile device as a notification alert.
Safe
Each facility should have a safe where the organization secures important documents and assets to protect them from theft and from disasters such as a fire.
Secure Cabinets/Enclosures
Many highly secure organizations have locked cabinets where they store sensitive material during off-hours. For example, in highly secure environments, removable drives are taken out of workstations and locked in a cabinet at night to control who has access to the contents of the drives.
Protected Distribution/Protected Cabling
It is important to control access to cabling with a protected distribution system (PDS). A PDS controls physical access and monitors access, to physical cabling by running the cabling through a secure conduit. If a hacker can gain physical access to the cabling system, they can tap into the communication, so you want to ensure you control access to the cabling.
Airgap
An airgap (or air gap) is an area that separates two different networks. For example, highly secure environments typically have a secret network that has no connections to the corporate network or LAN. This means an airgap exists between the secret network and other networks.
Mantrap
No physical security discussion would be complete without discussing a mantrap. Earlier in the book, you learned that a mantrap is an area between two doors with the second door not opening until the first door is closed. This helps prevent piggybacking or tailgating which is when someone tries to slip in behind you after you have unlocked a door. The concept here is that you would not open the second door if someone you didn’t know entered the mantrap area.
Faraday Cage
A Faraday cage is typically a room that prevents signals from emanating beyond the room. It includes electrical features that cause RF signals that reach the boundary of the room to be reflected back, preventing signal emanation outside the Faraday cage. A Faraday cage can also be a small enclosure.
In addition to preventing signals from emanating outside the room, a Faraday cage also provides shielding to prevent outside interference such as EMI and RFI from entering the room. At a very basic level, some elevators act as a Faraday cage (though I seriously doubt the designers were striving to do so). You might have stepped into an elevator and found that your cell phone stopped receiving and transmitting signals. The metal shielding around the elevator prevents signals from emanating out or signals such as the cell phone tower signal from entering the elevator.
On a smaller scale, electrical devices such as computers include shielding to prevent signals from emanating out and block interference from getting in.
Using a Faraday cage has become a popular practice in computer forensics to shield a component from sending or receiving a signal.
Lock Types
One of the most popular methods of controlling access to a facility or room is to implement a locking system on the doors. Conventional locks are easy to pick and susceptible to a bump key attack. A bump key is a normal key that has been filed down to fit into a lock—the key is inserted into the lock and pulled out one notch. When the key is tapped, it causes the pins in the lock to align and then unlock the door. You can purchase pick-resistant locks (for a higher cost), which give you the added security that the lock will not be easily compromised, but most companies use electronic locking systems in today’s high-security environments.
The two common types of electronic locking systems are an electronic key system and an electronic combination lock.
With an electronic key system, employees are given a token device that has their access code encoded in it. When the employee swipes the token past the electronic sensor, the door unlocks.
With an electronic combination lock, employees type a PIN number into the lock to gain access. I have seen electronic keypads that do not have numbers on the buttons until you press the Start button. Once you press the Start button, the system randomly generates the placement of the numbers so that if someone watches your finger position, it will not help them guess the access code. The electronic combination locks are also known as cipher locks.
With either of the electronic locking systems, the organization can control which areas an employee has access to based on the access code. These systems can also log access, including the date and time that the employee accessed the facility or different areas of the facility.
Biometrics
A common control used to control access to different areas of the building is biometrics. Highly secure environments may require a retina scan or fingerprint scan to enter a secure area of the building.
Barricades/Bollards
An organization can use barricades or bollards to control access to different areas of the facility. For example, the front of the building could be protected from vehicles by a concrete barricade.
Tokens/Cards
Some access systems use a physical token, or key fob, that employees carry with them and use to gain access to the facility or to a specific area of the facility. The access token is typically placed on the employee’s keychain and carried at all times.
