Physical Security: Access Control Policy Report - University Analysis

This report delves into the realm of physical security, defining it as the protection of an organization's assets, including networks, personnel, data, and hardware, from physical threats like fire, theft, and natural disasters. The core focus is on access control, identified as a critical component of physical security. The report explains access control policies as the foundation for securing organizational resources, outlining procedures and responsibilities that encompass general policies, authority, enforcement measures, audits, key management, and access to forms. Key enforcement measures are discussed, including key checking, controlled access, strict actions against violations, and key custody. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of access control in safeguarding assets from unauthorized access, highlighting the role of login credentials and access control policies in ensuring a secure environment. The report references several sources to support its findings.

Running head: PHYSICAL SECURITY
Physical Security
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note:

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Discussion..................................................................................................................................3
Access Control Policy............................................................................................................3
Enforcement Measures...........................................................................................................4
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................5
References..................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction
Physical security can be defined as the protection of all types of networks, personnel,
software, data, and hardware from any physical event or action, which could be causing
major damage or loss to any particular organization (Hu et al., 2013). The protection can be
from anything like fire, natural disasters, flood, theft, terrorism and many more. Access
control is the most important method of physical security.
The following report outlines a brief discussion on the access control policy of any
particular organization for ensuring the access control for making the system safe and
effective.
Discussion
Access Control Policy
Access control can be defined as the security measure or selective restriction in the
access to any particular resource or place (Yue et al., 2013). This is a type of physical
security that is utilized in all types of organizations irrespective of its size. Access control
Policy is a specific policy that defines the access control of any organization. This policy
solely builds various enforcement measures for ensuring the access control to their systems.
This policy makes the system extremely secured and effective. Every organization has a
specific Access Control Policy for securing their information systems (Ye et al., 2014). The
main aim of this policy is to detect and prevent any type of unauthorized access to the
organizational resources or properties. The access control policy of an organization has
various procedures as well as responsibilities. These procedures and responsibilities are given
below:

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i) General policy
ii) Authority
iii) Enforcement measures
iv) Audits
v) Keys of temporary issuance
vi) Access to forms and
vii) Others.
Each of these parts has distinct features and responsibilities for that particular
organization.
Enforcement Measures
The enforcement measures in the access control policy are given below:
i) Checking the key: This is the first and the foremost measure to control access in the
resources or assets in an organization (Lee, Chung & Hwang, 2013). The keys should be
checked by the authorized users so that there is no loophole in security of the key.
ii) Controlled Access: There should a strict control over the access of the confidential
information or data. Moreover, the important resources or assets are controlled with this.
iii) Strict Actions against Violations: When the employees or the staffs violate the
laws of access control, strict actions should be taken against them, so that this type of
violation is not repeated in the organization (Hu et al., 2013).
iv) Maintaining Custody of Keys: The custody of the keys should be maintained for
ensuring the security and privacy of the resources and assets of the organization.

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These are the enforcement measures in the access control policy of any particular
organization.
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion it can be concluded that, access control is the
most basic type of physical and information security that solely restricts the entry of any type
of unauthorized or unsanctioned access to the resources or assets. There are various login
credentials for locking the control of access. The access control policy is a type of policy that
is present in all organizations for controlling the access to their organizational assets and
resources. The above report has clearly depicted the access control policy of any
organization. The enforcement measures are also given here.

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References
Hu, V. C., Ferraiolo, D., Kuhn, R., Friedman, A. R., Lang, A. J., Cogdell, M. M., ... &
Scarfone, K. (2013). Guide to attribute based access control (ABAC) definition and
considerations (draft). NIST special publication, 800(162).
Lee, C. C., Chung, P. S., & Hwang, M. S. (2013). A Survey on Attribute-based Encryption
Schemes of Access Control in Cloud Environments. IJ Network Security, 15(4), 231-
240.
Ye, N., Zhu, Y., Wang, R. C., Malekian, R., & Qiao-min, L. (2014). An efficient
authentication and access control scheme for perception layer of internet of
things. Applied Mathematics & Information Sciences, 8(4), 1617.
Yue, J., Ma, C., Yu, H., & Zhou, W. (2013). Secrecy-based access control for device-to-
device communication underlaying cellular networks. IEEE Communications
Letters, 17(11), 2068-2071.