Importance of perimeter security with the rise of intelligent buildings

With the increased interest in intelligent buildings, it’s important to remember that physical security still has an important part to play in the overall security of a site.

Perimeter security and access control can work alongside and compliment intelligent buildings, providing a layered approach to protecting a target.

Most higher security sites typically employ the ‘Onion Principle’ to provide a layered approach to protecting a target. The principle works from the outside of the site into the centre, treating each different boundary as a layer which needs to be ‘hardened’ to delay the attacker and increase protection around the target.

This ‘layered’ approach increases the level of physical defence as you move deeper into the heart of the site and closer to the most critical assets in order to deliver the five ‘Ds’of effective perimeter security - to Deter, Detect, Deny, Delay and Defend.

The principles of a 5D perimeter security design are not just for high-security sites. They can be employed effectively in virtually any situation, as the fundamental approach of designing an effective 5D perimeter is that it is planned by viewing the perimeter from the outside in (from its attack side) and that applies as much to a self-storage facility or an inner city school as it would to a nuclear power site, as a risk assessment will show.