Highly Secure Physical Identity & Access Management Solutions

Department silos exist in every company whether or not a company chooses to admit it. Typically, the current approach to handling security in departmental silos has failed to stop the ever-increasing threat of security breaches. Convergint can implement physical identity & access management (PIAM), which is an identity and access management solution that integrates physical access control systems and badging with typical business applications, such as HR and IT directory services.

 Convergint partners with AlertEnterpise to offer PIAM Guardian software, which has the ability to centralize the administration and management of identities within a company, and it maintains a close relationship to organizational roles and how they relate to physical access. Combining the decisions to manage the amount of system access with the extent of physical area access improves security, reduces organizational risk, and lowers the cost of operations for corporate and enterprise security.

A big challenge faced by organizations is managing new employee hires and departures. In most organizations, the standard employee lifecycle processes are managed by HR applications. While most companies have mature processes for eliminating network and email access upon employee separation, studies have shown that physical access remains active for long durations following an employee separation.

Organizations continue to face challenges related to contractor onboarding and offboarding. Many industries follow the practice of acquiring contractors through a procurement or supply chain process. While most companies have processes for eliminating network and email access upon termination of employees, physical access for contractors remain active for long durations following termination. Insider threat becomes even more crucial when contractor assignments expire, but their badge access stays on indefinitely.

Guardian can eliminate gaps between logical and physical identities, scale the operation of access control systems to meet company needs across time zones and geographies, and enforce policies uniformly across access control systems from multiple vendors without changing underlying systems.

For industries that have highly regulated and specific security requirements, a PIAM solution can automate processes to meet compliance.  PIAM automation also helps to reduce risks and costs by eliminating confusion, duplicate functions, and extending the useful life of existing systems.