What is FISMA?

Biometric access control solutions are particularly valuable when trying to prevent sabotage, strategic data theft and other forms of subterfuge. This means that access control is often most popular in sectors casually classified as big business because organizations will try to infiltrate one another’s data centers to steal information. These theft-related issues are particularly evident in the public sector, where international spy activity and activists make up a major threat to data assets.

The Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 was designed to create regulatory guidelines for government agencies as they transitioned to greater dependence on IT systems. FISMA compliance is now a major priority for government organizations and access control plays a vital role in such strategies.

FISMA and access control

Subterfuge is a major challenge. There are few things stopping an activist from, for example, getting a computer sciences degree, taking specialized course work and ending up hired by a government agency. From there, the individual can use that access to steal sensitive data and either reveal it to the public or sell it to another country. These types of subterfuge strategies that take years to complete are a viable threat in the public sector because the information being handled by government agencies is so sensitive.

Such complex measures aren’t the only threat. Agencies need to protect against disgruntled employees, workers who may be offered large amounts of money to sell state secrets or trained spies who are able to take on just about any role and use that to get into a government data center.

Any loss of information is a breach of FISMA guidelines and government organizations need to take control of who can access different parts of their facilities to make sure unauthorized users cannot steal data. This often means going beyond controlling access to rooms and also putting locks on specific server cabinets or at the end of rows in the data center.

Government agencies handle large amounts of sensitive data and their security methodologies need to stand up against some of the most sophisticated threats in the world. At Digitus Biometrics, we pride ourselves on having built access control platforms for some of the most secure buildings in the world, and our solutions are designed to ensure compliance with the strictest regulatory standards out there, including FISMA laws. With a combination of advanced management software, secure locks and sophisticated features like built-in audit trails, our line of biometric access control systems give you everything you need to comply with FISMA regulations.