Electronic Access Control and why you need to think about a mechanical override

Electronic Access Control (EAC) systems are widely used and highly effective.

What many people don’t think about is that they can be easily bypassed. How? Many times these high-tech, high-dollar systems come with a generic mechanical cylinder as the override.

Typically the override is only used in an emergency of if the power goes out for an extended period of time. Using the override negates, scheduling, access rights, etc. That’s why it can be vulnerable.

Since the standard, low-security cylinders that EAC applications usually come with can be easily defeated, it’s important to replace these cylinders with a higher-level security cylinder.

This is an important topic, and one that we discussed in depth during our webinar called: Protecting Your EAC Investment. You can click here to watch a recording of the webinar.

This webinar was hosted by the Medeco team and accompanied by Aliana Steinbugl, the Director of Physical Security at Penn State University. Steinbugl talked about how Penn State evaluated its situation and decided to go with a higher-security mechanical override cylinder for 14,000 locks across campus. It’s a great story, and we hope you take the opportunity to listen to it.

 Some of the other topics covered on the webinar include:

·       How to mitigate risk and protect your EAC investment

·       What are override keys and when to use them

·       Which type of key system should be used for the override

·       Keying strategies for override keys

·       Key management best practices

If you have any other questions about override keys for your EAC system, please fill out the form below.