Ever-evolving data center security issues are the bane of company executives everywhere as continual breaches and changing technology can lead to myriad problems if a business is not prepared to adapt. A Tech Page One report discussed how the traditional data center paradigm is shifting and what a savvy business executive can do to maintain security compliance and be ahead of the development curve at the same time.

People make passwords weak
Many operations that utilize data centers also use access control provided by keys, passwords or passcards. These accessibility options are the ones that are being hacked, breached or defeated because there are multiple vulnerabilities inherent in the technologies. An Acunetix report said that weak passwords are a major flaw in that security option and people are unwilling to change their passwords just to bolster company security.

Biometric technology as an option
Biometric access control is extremely effective because it harnesses unique employee attributes in a non-duplicable manner. This information is then entered into a security database and linked to each individual employee. The data is gathered through a fingerprint scanner which picks certain aspects of each fingerprint to use as access control. For that person to get access to the data center, they must place their finger on a fingerprint reader. If the data matches what the system has on file, the person is passed through. If not, security would be alerted and they would take appropriate action.

Private sector not alone in lax security
While private companies like P.F. Chang continue to suffer data breaches at varying levels of their business it’s not just the private sector facing security woes due to weak and lax password protection. The United States Government is also rife with multiple-vulnerabilities. A ZDNet story showed that 48,000 incidents in the governmental realm in 2012 were from missing, weak, forgotten and otherwise neglected password protection. Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) is the ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and is pretty upset, Coburn told the Washington Post that agencies are not doing their jobs.

“[They] aren’t even doing the simple stuff,” Coburn told the paper.

He added that the government is not hiring expert IT staff to work on the systems because the pay scale isn’t competitive and they’re also not checking out other technological options. Since 2008 on the federal level the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Energy Department and the Security Exchange Commission have all experienced some level of breach or hacking. Although security standards have improved since those incidents, there are many vital areas of the federal government’s IT infrastructure that are open for attack through weak security systems. However, Washington has been very slow to react to continuing incidents of data loss or contamination. While earlier vulnerabilities have been fixed, more crop up every day, but, according to Coburn, more needs to be done, and quickly.

Deploying biometric technology can help companies, governments and municipalities secure their data and proprietary information safely and efficiently and eliminate unauthorized incursions to the data center. Keeping the center and the company server cabinets safe and secured should be the first thing a smart executive focuses upon to prevent breaches. Biometric access control is a big step toward locking down the data center. By keeping unwanted persons out of the physical data center facility – and that’s what biometric technology does – a company or governmental operation can be assured that their operations will not be compromised and that their data is protected, stored securely and virtually invulnerable to outside or internal attack.

Download our whitepaper here for information on achieving uniform access control from the front door to the server cabinet.