A Better Line of Defense

How to ensure perimeter security meets your expectations

On the heels of the government’s reassessment of the SBInet program, or the virtual fence as it’s been called, officials from Department of Homeland Security Customs and Border Protection have decided that there are better ways to deal with the needs for perimeter security at the U.S.-Mexican Border. These officials know that using advanced technology is part of the answer, but seamless integration and ease-of-use are also necessary for security management.

Just as at a country’s borders, perimeter security is at the top of every security operation’s list of priorities, whether it’s for a military base, stadium, housing complex, office park or school campus. Although the market provides numerous innovative technologies to address perimeter security, it’s important to determine the project’s needs and vet what should be implemented to achieve the desired results.

The perimeter is the first line of defense. As such, it should include both physical and psychological deterrents, and points of vulnerability should be as high priorities. This will all be operationally driven based upon your specific security programs.

How Important is Your Perimeter?
As with any security measure, you have to first define what level of assessment and response you hope to achieve at the various points at the perimeter. Do you want to:

  • Simply monitor the area?
  • Detect and deter potential threats?
  • Identify threats?
  • Have recognizable detail for proactive defense and forensic evidence?

At the very basic level, monitoring a perimeter ensures you have the ability to watch or observe the perimeter, whether that’s by a guard patrol or through technology. Monitoring also alerts you when there is an anomaly at or outside your perimeter. Additionally, deployment of noticeable physical security deterrents such as access control, surveillance cameras, thermal imaging, fencing, buried detection solutions, lighting and signage thwart most basic-level threats.

While monitoring and deterrents at your perimeter should be the foundation of protection, they alone do not provide the detail often required to improve your operational response effectiveness. In some extreme, high-security scenarios, knowledge of and response to every incident may be crucial to any perimeter security program. Fortunately, in today’s IT-focused world of efficiency, accuracy and accountability, intelligent solutions can take monitoring and detection to the next level, with identification and even recognition.

Today, security managers, CSOs and CIOs face numerous tools and solutions that include more efficient and sophisticated imaging and detection sensors that combine with advanced analytics and other algorithm- driven programs to improve response efficiency and help provide advanced perimeter detection. By assessing your perimeter protection needs, you can determine which technologies and solutions should be deployed to achieve success.

What are Your Limitations?
If every property, building, campus, base and country were uniform and standardized, then perimeter protection programs would be straightforward, with little change based on individual security policies. But as every application is different, perimeter security is presented with additional challenges based upon other variables:

  • Proximity of the perimeter to the operational response location(s);
  • Type of communication infrastructure between perimeter devices and operational locations;
  • How responses are handled, either from an on-site central location or a remote response and monitoring solution; and
  • The role that redundancy and backup strategies play in the perimeter policies.

Technology can easily be deployed based on the level of security need, so the common denominator comes back to location. In most cases, perimeter solutions are deployed far from the operational center responsible for coordinating any type of response.

While it is possible to install detection devices and video surveillance at a central location from which they can monitor the perimeter, the amount of equipment needed and the high-powered lenses required may not provide an efficient or cost-effective way to address the solution. As quality of the response and images are paramount these days and are compounded by the need for better identification and recognition, it’s likely you will need to move any detection solution as close to your actual perimeter as possible, making it farther away from your central operation location.

If you are fortunate to have a usable infrastructure in place, you are in the minority. Due to distance and obstacle limitations, most programs must look to wireless methods to pass the necessary data from the perimeter devices to any operational centers. Wireless radio links, microwave and sophisticated wireless mesh networks are all options, and while each has its advantages and disadvantages, it’s important to ensure you have stable, consistent communication from the perimeter to the response center.

Wireless communication solutions that can communicate on startup and that provide adaptability and backup communications paths -- that is, “selfhealing” systems -- can be crucial to ensuring you have the ability to respond. Activation and adaptation without manual user intervention could be the key to ensuring communication with your perimeter when unforeseen circumstances affect your site -- such as extreme weather or power failure.

Location, Location, Location
After you’ve determined the level of response required and the central operations location that will receive the data and communications from fieldbased perimeter devices, the next step is to determine which devices to add and then decide where they should be located.

Traditionally, most responses to perimeter detection and violation are handled at a central operations location via client applications to the various systems that are deployed. Advances in analytics and PSIM solutions have alleviated much of the response burden on the first-responder because the user is presented with information that has been pre-screened or filtered based upon the criteria defined under the user’s specific security program and policies. PSIMs also can manage data from multiple systems and help implement specific screening rules and reactionary system functions relative to your perimeter policies.

However, these types of systems must be seen as an enhancement to the effectiveness of the security personnel and programs, not a replacement for human efforts.

Your security programs also may include oversight response by senior staff or roving staff who are not at the operational center. Once again, technology has advanced to provide remote access to many perimeter solutions through the Web and smartphone applications.

With remote access to view the perimeter event both live and after an event, users have the flexibility to improve the level of response and communicate in a more interoperable manner.

Of course, in all of the above, IP technology provides open standards and off-the-shelf capability that enhance any perimeter solution and provide better response and review tools for operations and facility managers.

The limitations of traditional low-voltage power legacy devices and communication methods have given way to a growing breed of intelligent technology advances that are an absolute must-have to implement short- and long-term strategies for perimeter protection.

These newer IP technologies are also more adaptable to change with your organization as its policies and needs grow and change.

If you find you are faced with decisions about perimeter protection but your perimeter program is built on a foundation of legacy devices and outdated communications methods, take a hard look at which infrastructure you can change; otherwise, you could be left with disparate systems that can neither communicate nor be scaled for the future. Make your first line of defense your first priority.

This article originally appeared in the April 2011 issue of Security Today.

Featured

  • 12 Commercial Crime Sites to Do Your Research

    12 Commercial Crime Sites to Do Your Research

    Understanding crime statistics in your industry and area is crucial for making important decisions about your security budget. With so much information out there, how can you know which statistics to trust? Read Now

  • Boosting Safety and Efficiency

    Boosting Safety and Efficiency

    In alignment with the state of Mississippi’s mission of “Empowering Mississippi citizens to stay connected and engaged with their government,” Salient's CompleteView VMS is being installed throughout more than 150 state boards, commissions and agencies in order to ensure safety for thousands of constituents who access state services daily. Read Now

  • Live From GSX: Post-Show Review

    Live From GSX: Post-Show Review

    This year’s Live From GSX program was a rousing success! Again, we’d like to thank our partners, and IPVideo, for working with us and letting us broadcast their solutions to the industry. You can follow our Live From GSX 2023 page to keep up with post-show developments and announcements. And if you’re interested in working with us in 2024, please don’t hesitate to ask about our Live From programs for ISC West in March or next year’s GSX. Read Now

    • Industry Events
    • GSX
  • People Say the Funniest Things

    People Say the Funniest Things

    By all accounts, GSX version 2023 was completely successful. Apparently, there were plenty of mix-ups with the airlines and getting aircraft from the East Coast into Big D. I am all ears when I am in a gathering of people. You never know when a nugget of information might flip out. Read Now

    • Industry Events
    • GSX

Featured Cybersecurity

Webinars

New Products

  • EasyGate SPT and SPD

    EasyGate SPT SPD

    Security solutions do not have to be ordinary, let alone unattractive. Having renewed their best-selling speed gates, Cominfo has once again demonstrated their Art of Security philosophy in practice — and confirmed their position as an industry-leading manufacturers of premium speed gates and turnstiles. 3

  • XS4 Original+

    XS4 Original+

    The SALTO XS4 Original+ design is based on the same proven housing and mechanical mechanisms of the XS4 Original. The XS4 Original+, however, is embedded with SALTO’s BLUEnet real-time functionality and SVN-Flex capability that enables SALTO stand-alone smart XS4 Original+ locks to update user credentials directly at the door. Compatible with the array of SALTO platform solutions including SALTO Space data-on-card, SALTO KS Keys as a Service cloud-based access solution, and SALTO’s JustIn Mobile technology for digital keys. The XS4 Original+ also includes RFID Mifare DESFire, Bluetooth LE and NFC technology functionality. 3

  • AC Nio

    AC Nio

    Aiphone, a leading international manufacturer of intercom, access control, and emergency communication products, has introduced the AC Nio, its access control management software, an important addition to its new line of access control solutions. 3