Understating the Four Major Aspects of Security

Since the days of castles and moats with squawking geese for alarms, lifted drawbridges to delay access and using boiling oil and arrows as fatal warnings to intruders, the field of surveillance security has definitely come a long way. On the other hand, even though technology has certainly improved, the principles of perimeter security are much the same. Perimeter security still required a total response that dissuades, senses, hinders and refutes invaders access to critical property.

Dissuade

Perimeter security was only concerned with deterrence a few generations ago. Guarding the perimeter was somewhat of a secondary concern. As soon as the main facility was established, and after the installation access control and building security, the property manager might have thought about building a fence to protect the property.

Building a fence around the property is a great deterrent to evil-doers. A fence can be designed as a strong decorative fence with heavy iron or as a chain link fence with coiled razor wire and barbed wire offsets. Definitely, a trespasser will attack the other location instead of yours, if your fence is more formidable than your neighbor's.

High-security fences are still built with an intention to dissuade criminals. Believe it or not, many attractive decorative fences can be setup to endure a 15,000-pound vehicle traveling at more than forty five miles per hour.

Furthermore, perimeter security experts also can bury the bottom of the fence, electrify it, as well as put stacks of razor tape on top and along both sides of it. Nevertheless, an experienced thief will find a way to get to the other side regardless of the precautions. It is important to be able to sense, hinder and react at the perimeter, in addition to dissuading especially since the world becoming more dangerous in matters of terrorist incidents.

Sense

A person can climb over a fence quite easily, so a detection system to sense this incident needs to be set up. In fact, a national laboratory testing center has experimentally determined that a highly skilled intruder needs only 4 seconds to get to the other side of a well-designed fence. It becomes very imperative to broadcast information that someone has gotten over the fence or is presently attempting to do so since it is accepted that a trespasser will get through a fence within 4 to 40 seconds in a high-security application. The role of intrusion detection becomes vital at this moment.

Determining which type of intrusion detection equipment to choose depends greatly on factors such as the probability of detection and the time required to detect an intrusion.

Perimeter security is one of the most important applications to install for many facilities and vulnerable properties. According to ASIS Foundation Funds Development chairman and president of the Bordes Group this perimeter security technology needs to be detailed, with a variety of methods that double-check for intrusion and it must be maintained to be efficient.

Luckily, there are such security technologies that will carryout the detection process. As in the old movies of prisoner getaway movies the thief would break out of prison, dodging searchlights and sirens. He would always manage to duck under the light even though lights would shine up, down, side to side, but. Actually, it today’s world this will be more difficult to carry out. Any bend or twist in the light fiber optic stretched along the fence no matter how slight will immediately show a variation in the color of the light. This is possible due to the fact that wavelengths contained in white light reflect differently at various angels of the area. Within about a meter, from where the twist or bend took place an optical time domain reflectometer (a type of radar for light attached to the fiber optic) would locate the spot, and a searchlight can be aimed instantly at that specific spot. If anybody was running around the enclosure, a microwave or infrared detector would pick up his presence.

Many other things can be used at the perimeter for detection besides fiber optics. One of the most efficient systems is the old standby, taut wire, which is still in use today. The taut wire is stretched tight, typically at the offsets on top of the fence’s location. At the ends of the sensors is these tight wires are attached. Electromagnetic even magnetic devices, which can be capacitive or inductive in nature, represent other systems that can be attached directly to the fence. Thankfully, this type of system functions well to protect a warehouse and adjoining premises. Furthermore, this type of fence system is installed in many airports in an attempt to protect the runways. No to mention that magnetic detectors will usually pick up individuals carrying metal  (even if it's only fillings in their teeth) and will completely ignore animals and their metal accessories.

One more example becomes apparent when deploying a perimeter security system in an environment that experiences frequent severe weather. You may wonder how can vibration detection systems on the fence work well when security personnel don't want to be presented with nuisance alarms every time the a breeze comes by? One can simply set up a meteorological system at the fence that will regularly measure the speed of the wind, humidity or temperature, and recompense for changes in the weather.

Luckily numerous systems already have this weather station integrated in them. Only a severe and quick change in the weather or environment will cause an alarm to be triggered. Individuals may want to know when a sudden windstorm kicks up in some instances.

Different techniques of detecting a trespasser can actually be carried out before someone touches the fence’s boundaries. Either fiber an electromagnetic or optic cable can be buried in the ground behind or in front of the fence’s location. In relation to fiber optics, the fiber to bend slightly due to the pressure on top of it which will be generated down into the ground and will cause, it will also result in changing the color of the light that continues on from that location. One can also use electromagnetically ported coax cable. This system contains a coaxial cable that has holes in the ground sheath around the conductor, thereby allowing some radio frequency energy to leak out, that is why it is commonly referred to as leaky coax.

A balloon-like pattern above the ground will be formed by this leaky RF, the height of it will be determined by the nature of the ground and depth/distance of the cables. The imbalance in the energy will be transmitted to a receiver via the cable system in a body happens to penetrate this balloon-like cloud.

A body of water or many other perimeters may not have fences. Light beams, heat-seeking infrared detectors, or microwave beams can be used to protect this area. Furthermore, the light beams can be invisible, and some types of beams can even be digital in nature, and can be encrypted to be triggered on and off at speedy and irregular intervals, thus prohibiting someone trying to defeat the system with their own light source that is usually aimed from the transmitter to the receiver device.

A combination of RF and microwave or RF and light, to prevent false alarms (often referred to as dual technology) are used by many detectors. Last but not least, the system must be able to hinder and react to incidents. And if at all possible you want the system to be able to delay to at least equal response time to disallow a trespasser entry to a vital location.

Hinder/React

Believe it or not, a major hindrance and a great deterrence lie only in the look and nature of perimeter security. The detection will be handled by the technology that is in front of the perimeter and or connected to the perimeter. A Function of how long the staff needs to respond is the actual amount of the delay. Turning the lights on, sounding an alarm or aiming a video camera along the perimeter to the point of intrusion are some examples of instant responses. However if employees must rush to the area a longer response time is required. In that case, prepare layers of perimeter security such as an outer fence with barbed wire offsets, then plenty of inner fencing and coiled razor wire. Normally, by using a series of devices a designer will aim for a 40-second delay at the perimeter.

Nevertheless, if people can't communicate the information that the fence has been breached in a timely manner the best detection system available in the world will not be effective.

It goes without saying that all detection and delay technology should have the ability to talk to each other or at least communicate by using a software application setup of some format. In the past few decades, every system had its own separate output wired to a monitoring point. Tens or even hundreds of devices rapidly crowded these monitoring locations rapidly. Not to mention that the security personnel had to have an eye on 25 different systems all at the same time, to make matters worse, he had to learn how to operate each one using the correct proprietary codes for correspondence.

 Luckily, all these devices can be combined into one system via the use of TCP/IP (Telecommunications Protocol/Internet Protocol) thanks to modern advancements in the field of telecommunications. Every sensor in an invasion recognition system, such as the setup that picks up vibration at the fence surroundings, can now have its own IP address. This enables two-way correspondence to the sensor by utilizing the computer network, regardless of whether it is local or remote by using an online network. This means that the operator can be notified about something from the sensor or can make adjustments to the sensor from the control location. All these capabilities can be incorporated into one system of operations. That system can carry out all the required surveillance operations for the enterprise. These functions can vary greatly such as keeping employee files, creating badges, , saving monitoring logs of employees coming and going, viewing CCTV and, certainly, administering the intrusion detection interface.

A fence breaching will instantly show up on a computer screen at the monitoring station and a response can immediately take place with all of these integrated features and capabilities. The trespass action can even be sent to a PDA by using IP addresses. This enables the surveillance personnel to control the intrusion by turning on floodlight, activating a siren or sending out a vehicle with guards.

Moreover, perimeter security procedures are now so sophisticated to the extent that an intelligent video system can be setup to look for certain situations requiring a reaction. If someone starts climbing the fence or if someone is walking in the wrong direction, or if someone drops a bag and it remains stationary for a specific period of time, all of these situations and more can be detected by intelligent video. The key to this matter is hindering easy access to the perimeter of a facility long enough to deny access to the critical infrastructure.

Refute

 
Some people may wonder why the perimeter is so important and why is most of the security efforts targeted at it? Facilities can keep people out simply with a good security at the door of the actual building. A boundary line and a gate is all that is needed at the perimeter of a building. However individuals with harmful intentions need to only get next to the building to cause detrimental and sometimes fatal results. If you ponder upon the Oklahoma City bombing you will realize that the perpetrators never even had to leave the side of the road to implement their devilish plan.

According to the vice president of technology for Safeguards Technology Inc the importance of these concepts, dissuade, sense, hinder and are clearly demonstrated through the changes in the physical security of the U.S. commercial nuclear industry that were recently mandated. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a series of advisories to its major licensed facilities immediately following the attacks of 9/11. These new protocols mandated licensees to go to the highest level of security surveillance and to further supplement security via increased active supervision, supplementary security forces and features; deployment of additional physical barriers; vehicle check points at greater stand-off distances; advanced coordination with law enforcement and military authorities; and more restraining site access controls. As the result of implementing the concepts of dissuade, sense, hinder and refute the security of the nuclear industry has been drastically improved.

Critical information also must be protected, and trespassers must be denied access to critical information even if physical damage to a structure or facility is not an intruder's goal. a modern moat that protects and secures the infrastructure is immediately established by adding a total system solution of perimeter security to any building or facility already that is already secured by modern access controls, it also provides exceptional performance in denying and administering access to the property.