Find news and information for the executive corporate security director, CSO, facility manager and assets protection manager on issues of policy, products, incidents, risk management, threat assessments and preparedness.
Issue link: http://sdi.epubxp.com/i/246277
SPECIAL FOCUS: STATE OF THE INDUSTRY So, as they are using mobile applications in the rest of their lives, students entering the workforce will fuel demand for increased use of smartphones. As businesspeople, they will expect office buildings and technical campuses, as well as services, to be mobilefriendly. They won't want to remember and manage multiple cards, items and ID credentials when they could simply use their smartphone. an RFID reader is easier than swiping a magnetic stripe card. Smart cards provide more applications, such as cashless vending in addition to increased access control security. The same will happen with NFC. Many smart phones currently on the market are already NFC-enabled with more mod- What Is NFC? Near field communication, or NFC, provides simplified transactions, data exchange and wireless connections between two devices that are in close proximity to each other, usually by no more than a few centimeters. Many smartphones currently on the market already contain embedded NFC chips that can send encrypted data a short distance ("near field"). A popular Samsung Galaxy mobile phone television commercial shows how it works. Remember how the two phones come together so that the couple can swap photographs? That's NFC in action. To turn NFC-enabled smartphones into an access control credential — thus enabling people to use their smartphones to enter buildings in the same way they present a badge ID — users simply download the app to their smartphones. Then, the user's access control administrator uses the cloud service to send a secure mobile credential directly to the user's phone. Once the mobile credential is downloaded, the user opens the app and taps his or her smartphone on the reader in the same way one uses an ID card. Beyond the user's convenience, administrators find that using smartphones as badges saves time — assigning the credential to a phone takes less work than printing and delivering a badge. The Future is Imminent If you look at the recent history of credential usage, new credentials such as proximity or smart cards were always more convenient and secure than their predecessors. For example, placing a proximity card close to els being launched every month. According to a report by Market Research, nearly half of all mobile phones will be NFC-enabled by 2016. Thus, there are a great number of early adaptors in the user population that are already looking forward to using their smartphones as their access control credentials. As with smart cards, many early adaptors will be on college campuses, ready to bring the technology to the commercial market along with themselves and their degrees. Allegion's aptiQmobile secure peer-topeer (P2P) NFC mode enables organizations to provide the convenience of using a mobile device as an ID badge. Allegion's Solution While the major carriers will ultimately offer an NFC card emulation/secure element solution, organizations wanting to utilize NFC-enabled smartphones as their access control credentials for employees and students can begin the transition now. An example is the recently introduced aptiQmobile secure peer-to-peer (P2P) NFC mode from Allegion, which lets organizations pro- www.SecurityInfoWatch.com | SD&I; | January 2014 35