 Hey, welcome back to Think Tech Away. I'm Andrew, the security guy, your Hibachi Talk co-host, and I'm here with another public safety announcement on this production of Your Security Minute. Now, modern electronic access control systems provide for an electronic key to be issued to each door user. Now, that key might be a card or a code or a biometric credential, like a fingerprint or an iris scan, or a combination of two or more of those credentials. Of utmost importance is that modern electronic access control systems also track the open-closed position of the door. This allows the users to receive a forced door alarm when the door is open without a proper key being presented. It also allows for door-held open alarms to be programmed so that doors aren't left to jar accidentally or on purpose. Now, this door position monitoring is what really separates access control systems from electronic door-opening systems. Modern access control systems also track all the user transactions by date and time and can prevent users from entering during unauthorized times, such as only allowing a cleaning crew to enter a facility between 9 and 10 PM, for example. Electronic access control systems have matured in recent years, and the old 125 kilohertz proximity card technology has fallen into distrust because it can be easily copied, much like barcode readers fell into disuse because barcodes can be readily copied with any printer. Today's electronic access control proximity card technologies have evolved around a higher 13.56 megahertz frequency. Now, this higher frequency allows us to transfer greater amounts of data between the card and the card reader. This increased data transfer capacity allows us to encrypt the data not only on the card, but we can encrypt the transfer of data wirelessly between the card and the card reader. Recent advances in electronic access control communication protocols also allow us to encrypt the communications between the reader and the door control panel using secure open source data protocol. That's secure OSDP for short. Secure OSDP provides us with a high level of assurance that the requested door transaction is valid, and it hasn't been sniffed off of the communication lines, copied, and then replayed to fool the system into granting unauthorized access. If your facility is still using the older proximity technology and communicating via the older Wagan data protocol, it's time to start budgeting for an upgrade to a modern access control system. Access control solutions built with these older technologies serve us a solid 20 years, so you've gotten your investment back. Replacing your unreliable access control system may require substantial investment, although much of your cabling and power supplies may still be reusable. So you're going to want to get new equipment, leveraging newer technologies to carry you securely into the coming decade. Ask your security provider to give you an upgrade assessment and get that planning effort started today. Who's got your back?