The RFID system allows one access card to open a multitude of door locks and this is an executable decision to be made by the system owner. For multiple persons such as a large business with 150 staff members, the system owner decides who gets access to which doors and these decisions can be easily implemented with the help of a supervisor software package associated with the locks and keys.
In theory, there is not an upper limit of the number of locks that can be supervised by one system. In practice, software licenses come into the picture. At the other end of the complexity spectrum, a software package would not be needed and the allocation of locks and keys for people can be assigned on a per lock basis.
The RFID system allows one access card to open a multitude of door locks and this is an executable decision to be made by the system owner. For multiple persons such as a large business with 150 staff members, the system owner decides who gets access to which doors and these decisions can be easily implemented with the help of a supervisor software package associated with the locks and keys.
In theory, there is not an upper limit of the number of locks that can be supervised by one system. In practice, software licenses come into the picture. At the other end of the complexity spectrum, a software package would not be needed and the allocation of locks and keys for people can be assigned on a per lock basis.
In the event of fire or electricity cut, all magnetic or electric controllable locks would be released (returned to the open state). For a hotel of 300 rooms, all guests can safely get out of their room and the hotel building. Hotel staff can go into rooms allocated to senior citizens or people with disability. Without such fail-safe feature, hotel staff would have to manually unlock all 300 rooms.
It would be desirable for an audible siren to be turned on in case all door locks are released automatically in the background. A fire would be accompanied by an alarm anyway. What about electricity cuts? The siren would have to be battery-powered. Similarly, the locks should run on standby power in case of electricity loss.
There are locks that are designed to be fail-secured for installing in data or money safes for instances. This is a major decision with fatal consequences if not properly decided and executed. This is a Compucon system design philosophy. Do not assume that all locking systems are the same.
In the event of fire or electricity cut, all magnetic or electric controllable locks would be released (returned to the open state). For a hotel of 300 rooms, all guests can safely get out of their room and the hotel building. Hotel staff can go into rooms allocated to senior citizens or people with disability. Without such fail-safe feature, hotel staff would have to manually unlock all 300 rooms.
It would be desirable for an audible siren to be turned on in case all door locks are released automatically in the background. A fire would be accompanied by an alarm anyway. What about electricity cuts? The siren would have to be battery-powered. Similarly, the locks should run on standby power in case of electricity loss.
There are locks that are designed to be fail-secured for installing in data or money safes for instances. This is a major decision with fatal consequences if not properly decided and executed. This is a Compucon system design philosophy. Do not assume that all locking systems are the same.
There are indeed several levels of security of the locking system for consideration. The hotel system would need a higher level of security than an average household or business. An organisation like a prison or police station will need even a higher level and so on. On the other hand, no household or business wants to have lesser security than offered by the traditional lock and key. RFID-based systems as adopted by Compucon are indeed a good option but it depends on how each system is installed and managed.
It is well established that many people have the skill of opening a traditional door lock without a correct key. This is indeed a major security issue. We can only hope that all people with the skill of opening door locks are not hackers and not interested in our home or office. Change the lock to RFID-controlled, the concern of misuse of skill is mostly gone.
Hackers will try to tamper with the RFID locking system. Good locking systems will give alarms if tampered. Compucon approved card readers and locks are tamper-proofed.
There are other opportunities for hackers to go into remotely controlled locks. Wireless would be one because wireless signals could be picked up by eavesdropping or intercepting. If the wireless signal goes to the cloud, the exposure to attackers would be widely open. On the other hand, we do not need to assume that we would definitely be hacked if we use wireless or the cloud. The probability is just higher.
RFID cards are not meant to be duplicated as the ID number is pre-built in an electronic circuit protected against duplication. Also, the ID or PIN number has many more digits than 4 or 6 used for other PIN-based devices (personal identity number). In case we lost our RFID card, we would get a replacement with a different ID or PIN number and the lost number would be invalidated. Therefore whoever picked up our lost card will not be able to use the card at all even though the person knows where we live.
We do get a higher level of security than traditional locks and keys if the system is designed and implemented by Compucon or professionals of the same level.
