CAMBRIDGE, Mass.—CoreStreet got a boost for its converged access control
solution this week with a strategic investment and technology advancement
agreement from In-Q-Tel, the investment firm affiliated with the U.S. federal
intelligence community, chartered by Congress. The funding, the amount of which
was not disclosed, will be used to enhance CoreStreet’s Card-Connected
technology, which “uses strong cryptography to extend central access control to
standalone doors and mobile locks, at a fraction of the cost of wired doors,”
according to a statement by CoreStreet chief executive officer Chris Broderick.
In an interview with Security Systems News, Broderick said the relationship with
In-Q-Tel started with preliminary discussions over the past two years, but
started in earnest in the late summer of 2007, when In-Q-Tel contacted
CoreStreet about acting as an accelerator for its physical security access
solution. “The converged idea was very compelling to them,” said Broderick. “We
provide a set of technologies that make smart cards work at very large scale,
both providing logical control for everyday usage and facility access. The
combined set of technologies transforms the credential into an interoperable
platform.”
Basically, within a CoreStreet-enabled access control system,
standalone electronic locks and physical access control systems communicate by
reading and writing digitally signed data (privileges and logs) to and from
smart cards. In this way, cardholders become an extension of the physical access
network where cards, instead of wires, carry information to and from the
standalone locks.
The flagship Card-Connected products are a series of
locks, such as the Kaba E-Plex 5900, that authenticate electronic credentials
and enforce the enterprise’s policies. These locks ensure the enterprise can
audit access to physical resources, manage the locks efficiently, and enforce
policies in remote locations without dispatching support personnel or installing
network connectivity.
“CoreStreet is a critical addition to our strategic
investment portfolio for security technologies,” said Ben Levitan, partner at
In-Q-Tel, in a statement. “As part of our charter, In-Q-Tel evaluates innovative
technology advances with specific applicability to the challenges facing the
U.S. intelligence community ... We are impressed with [CoreStreet’s] creative
solutions to physical security challenges and with the emerging eco-system
supporting their innovative solutions.”
And while In-Q-Tel will provide
CoreStreet and its channel partners with access to government work, Broderick
noted, “The accelerator puts us in a great position to get the message out into
the marketplace about the commercial viability of this technology, and that’s
resonated with our partners in the early going.”
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