There’s no future without convenience
An Interview with Carsten Hoersch
Safety and convenience don’t have to be at odds with one another. In this interview, Carsten Hoersch from Sesamsec explains how this works, where the potential lies and what limits need to be set in terms of convenience and security.
Mr. Hoersch, at this year’s Access Control Forum, the question how to reconcile security and convenience raised the issue that high security and security need to be seen as separate topics. What’s your view?
Security is not an absolute value; it exists on a spectrum. In our projects, we often work with a three-stage security concept: convenience, security, and high security. While for the likes of a canteen, the convenient solution is probably sufficient, with which I only grant access via RFID card, for a laboratory I need a solution that checks both entry and exit. In other words, it needs to enable me to check attendance and/or anti-passback, for example. For a high-security laboratory with dangerous viruses, on the other hand, I have to extend this solution to another level and minimize the risk of fraud and manipulation. This can be done by using two-factor authentication with an RFID card and PIN code, for example.