As always complacency is a key part of a security breach. The part of security that is most often neglected is the Insider threat.
Good accreditation is vital.
We have to learn lessons from incidents across the world and this security breach at the Bruno Mars concert in Singapore’s National Stadium revealed significant security weaknesses relating to accreditation and in particular pass security.
Karl Phillippe Njiomo Tengueu, a 23-year-old from Cameroon, managed to forge a fake pass and gain entry to the concert venue without a valid ticket.
Are your staff members aware of the value of their passes and understand what to do in the event of theft or people paying particular attention to staff passes?
These simple techniques can reduce your vulnerability to this threat;
1. Include a photo. The easiest way for your security team to check whether a person is who they say they are, is to include a photo on the badge.
2. Add access permissions Consider specific colours or icons to show what a pass entitles the holder to do and where they are allowed to go. make sure access permissions are clear on the badge and that your security team know what it all means.
3. Use a unique ID If you hide a unique ID number for every person in a bar code, QR code or RFID chip, a quick scan at your access control points will instantly be able to tell you if that pass is valid.
4. Use anti-counterfeit measures Holograms, black light ink, or micro printing make it very difficult for anyone to forge a badge or ticket.
5. Change designs Large venues or recurring events are sure to have a high churn of temporary workers. Don’t issue ‘season’ badges for agency staff – changing the colour of your badge for each event will make it easy for your security team to see if anyone is re-using old passes. Even better, issue a new unique ID for staff at every event and a quick scan of the badge will tell you if their pass is valid.
Good practice tips
- Use large format badges to make the visual ID of photos or access zones easy for your security team. No one wants to be squinting at credit card sized passes all day.
- Ensure that there is something on the back of the pass. When people share photos of their badges or tickets online, they almost always display the front. No one knows what is on the back.
- Your staff need to know they are prohibited from sharing images of their badges online.
- Print and distribute badges as close to the event as possible to reduce the opportunity of copies.
- Keep designs confidential and allocate unique IDs as late as possible.
Time to talk?
Get in touch if you are interested in talking all things accreditation – info@accredit-solutions.com
