Physical security systems are a key line of defence when it comes to protecting critical infrastructure from compromise.
Systems used for access control and video surveillance are getting smarter – but so too are malicious actors.
The National Protective Security Authority (NPSA) is the lead authority for physical security best practice and guidance.
One of its roles is to approve physical security products and systems, mainly to give confidence to buyers of such products (often Government and critical infrastructure businesses).
CyTAL works very closely with NPSA and is an approved test lab.
In other words, if you are a developer or manufacturer, we can help you to evaluate and test your implementation against the NPSA standards.
Products that we evaluate include:
- Readers
- Keypads
- Tokens
- Access Control Systems
- Video Management Systems
- CCTV
CyTAL is an NPSA Approved Test Lab
There are several ways to get your products and systems approved, with NPSA’s CAPSS scheme being the most widely applicable.
For high security or critical infrastructure applications you should seriously consider a CAPSS approval from NPSA.
The CAPSS standard focusses on six key areas: physical security, secure configuration, network security, authentication, monitoring and cloud.
For more information on CAPSS, see here:
The NPSA also publishes another standard which details (functional) security requirements for Automatic Access Control Systems (AACS).
For more information on AACS, see here:
There are also separate security requirements for tokens, readers, and keypads. Following a successful evaluation, your product will appear on NPSA’s catalogue of security equipment (CSE) here:
