Preparing for integrated physical and logical access control: The common authenticator

The benefits are compelling, but let's face facts: implementing a common authenticator requires much heavy lifting and can take several years. There are various dimensions to the problem, including:

Smart card personalization and distribution
The process of making the smart card ready for the user is called personalization. The procedure includes: printing the user's picture, installing applets and PKI (X.509) certificates, and binding the smart card to both the user and the physical access system.

In most cases, a smart card management system (CMS) is a deployment requirement. Important considerations when evaluating a CMS include:

It's easy to see why the distribution of smart cards to an organization's employees is considered "heavy lifting." The process can take months or even years, and the many important details require careful planning. The distribution of smart cards to "virtual" employees, those that rarely visit a campus, requires special attention.

Upgrade of physical access control systems
It's a toss-up as to which activity causes more organizational heartburn: the distribution of smart cards, or the upgrading of the physical access systems across an organization's campuses. Organizations may have a wide spectrum of physical access technologies across their environments, from keys to magnetic stripes to biometric authenticators to contactless tools. As part of the planning process, an organization should inventory its campus-wide physical access system and determine what upgrades are necessary for the implementation of a common authenticator.

While there is wide variability, the typical components of modern physical access systems include readers, controllers, security serv

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Emergency access procedures
It's a fact of life: users will forget their smart card at home. Without them, they cannot access applications, workstations, buildings, and maybe the parking lot or the bathroom. With proper emergency access measures, such an error should only be a temporary one. The organizational challenge is to implement emergency access procedures that give forgetful, card-less users timely access to resources. The access processes must also do so in a cost-effective manner. Some tricks of the trade include:

Even in the face of the many details mentioned above, planning for a common authenticator appears more daunting than it really is. If the organization defines achievable milestones and exercises vigilance against the temptation of expanding and redefining the objective of the project, implementation is possible.

About the author:
Mark Diodati, CPA, CISA, CISSP, MCP, CISM, has served as vice president of worldwide IAM for CA, as well as senior product manager for RSA Security's smart card, SSO, UNIX security, mobile PKI and file encryption products. He has had extensive experience implementing information security systems for the financial services industry since starting his career at Arthur Andersen & Co. He is a frequent speaker at information security conferences, a contributor to numerous publications, and has been referenced as an authority on IAM in a number of academic and industry research publications.

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