Manufacturers still sell this style of lock, with a number of different locking mechanisms, but they also offer locks that don’t leave lasting marks on your cabinets.Īdhesive: Some locks attach to cabinets with powerful adhesive pads. This method is extremely secure, but it leaves holes in your cabinet door long after your child’s baby stage has ended. Screws: Old-school cabinet locks could only be installed one way: by drilling into the inside of your cabinet door and holding the locks in place with screws. While they are an additional expense at many colocation providers, electronic access control at the rack level adds significant levels of security and audit trails to your server equipment, and has many benefits over cages, which can also be quite expensive.Some customers use cabinet locks to keep pets out of cabinets where trash or food is stored. Specific change or access control protocol can even be tied to lock mechanisms, so if the proper process hasn’t been completed, the lock will not open. Smart locks can be set up to only allow access during certain time periods, like when an operations team member is expected to arrive and configure a new piece of equipment they can also be configured to only open when the correct combination of users is present, like a supervisor and a contractor, for example. Security knows immediately which server rack is responsible for a breach in this case. Unlike many mechanical locks, they can be tied into facility-wide security systems, activating alarms or lockdowns and alerting security staff if credentials are invalid or access is forced. They validate user credentials with a central server, responding with a signal to unlock the cabinet, or unlocking remotely when instructed by an authorized user.Įlectronic locks can also generate logs, simplifying audits with a detailed activity record. These “smart locks” are starting to crop up in more data centers and are tied to either biometric, keycard, or pin code access right at the server rack or cabinet. High levels of access control and monitoring and remote controls can be enabled with electronic rack access solutions. Keycode access makes this simpler, and assigning specific codes to individuals or groups allows some level of access tracking. Key management can be a time consuming process and all authorized personnel must be provided with keys in this case. They may also have keycode access in addition or lieu of the regular key, as on Green House Data’s modular containment pods. Traditionally racks have a handle and a manual key. Ultimately rack and cabinet security remains fairly low-tech. Or they could simply download the information on-site and leave with a hard drive full of sensitive data.Īre There Really Innovations in Rack Security? They could bypass external network security controls by relaying from behind the firewall or switch. Outside of equipment theft, which is itself a leading cause of HIPAA breaches (and other security events), malicious intruders could also plant keyloggers, video cameras, or other tracking devices on the hardware itself before leaving the facility. While this is true, a visitor could impersonate someone with security clearance in order to gain access, making them impossible to track once they leave the facility. With detailed access records and logs generated from visitor RFID badges, biometric access, and written entry logs, plus video surveillance, why bother locking the individual rack or cabinet? After all, NOC or support staff can easily track down who had access to which data center floor at a given time. How then do data center providers go about securing cabinets and racks? Physical security measures remain vitally important, as social engineering and theft can extend to hardware and not just data. With different compliance standards and security requirements for various applications, some colocation providers will install custom locks for your cabinet if necessary. Newer technologies allow automated access logs, biometric security, wireless unlocking, and more. After all, how complicated can a door lock get? While most every data center will have some form of lock on their racks and/or cabinets, especially colocation facilities as they have multiple clients accessing shared floor space, not all locks are created equal. As data center design continues to evolve, one stalwart piece hasn’t changed too much: cabinet or rack security and monitoring.
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