Biometric Access Control

[BattZ]

Recently someone tried to break into a warehouse portion of my work. They tore the knob and lock to hell, but didn't manage to get in. This warehouse is leased out, but a "locked" off part (2 peices of dry wall and a door, no ceiling) contains our modem, some routers, a firewall and a few other items of the type. Last year I brought up the idea of biometric and magnetic locks to the CEO, but he put it on the back burner since there was more important things to do, but this brought it back up front for him. So I was curious if anyone had experiences with them, I would prefer (I think) something connected to a server, so I could run at least 3 doors using the same fingerprint database. I've only seen one or two like this, which is making me think there is a better way that I'm not seeing. Most can only store 25 prints, a few others 99, while we have around 20 employees now, we are going to be hiring several more in the next month or so. They didn't think about security before I was hired, so now I'm trying to catch everything up. On the bright side, my boss's password is no longer 123456, I didn't think people really used that, even though it's on every top hacked passwords list every year.

Any insights into this are greatly appreciated

Thanks

[Mr-Protocol]

Don't use Biometric. Use a scramble pad with magnetic/doorjam locking. We use those and they work rather well.

[bobbyb1980]

I would think keypads are vulnerable to ATM style replication attacks, someone makes a fake keypad, puts it on top and viola. I'd also think they're vulnerable to surveillance, someone is watching, someone puts a hidden camera pointed at the keypad, etc.

Call me old fashioned, but I think the best security is a human guard. The more I learn about the technologies we use the less I trust them.

[BattZ]

I don't think survelance is much of a worry, it's more of this type os situation.

One of the doors it's going on is a glass door, why spend the money and time to set something like that up when a 5$ hammer will do the job. I do like the keypad idea, since I think those were a bit cheaper then the biometrics. Any other ideas or endorsements people have used in the past?

Thanks for the info

[Mr-Protocol]

I would think keypads are vulnerable to ATM style replication attacks, someone makes a fake keypad, puts it on top and viola. I'd also think they're vulnerable to surveillance, someone is watching, someone puts a hidden camera pointed at the keypad, etc.

Call me old fashioned, but I think the best security is a human guard. The more I learn about the technologies we use the less I trust them.

The keypads scramble with each push of "Start" so the number are never in the same spot. They are also slightly recessed and actually kind of a pain to even see the numbers when standing right in front of it.