The PSIA announced that two of its members actively supporting the PKOC specification will be speaking at the CONSULT 2024 Symposium. Since its inception, eight years ago, CONSULT has emerged as one of the premier and most unique events in the security industry.

The symposium fills a largely unmet need in the security industry for manufacturers and consultants to interact with each other, to better understand security technologies, trends, and techniques as they impact security consultants, and to create an environment for the development of valuable relationships.

Jason Ouellette, a 30-year veteran of the security industry and the Chairman of the PSIA will be joined by Ed Chandler, one of the most respected consultants in the industry. Ed founded Security by Design over 50 years ago and has built it into an international powerhouse, serving an impressive list of enterprise customers.

“We look forward to having Ed Chandler and Jason Ouellette explain the latest development in PKOC at CONSULT 2024. Past years’ presentations have not only increased the understanding of PKOC, but have added to the enthusiasm behind it,” said Ray Coulombe, Founder and Managing Director of Security Specifiers, the sponsor of CONSULT 2024. “I envision that this year will be no different. Congratulations to PSIA for making PKOC a reality and valuable resource to the industry,” noted Coulombe.

At Consult, Jason and Ed will be providing participants an update on the PKOC specification, its capabilities and opportunities. “The session offers a chance to dig in to the details of PKOC: how it works, why it makes sense, how to specify it, what is available from the manufacturers to create a fully functional PKOC environment. We are looking forward to seeing all of you,” noted Chandler.

PKOC creates truly secure and interoperable credentials. The commercial and security advantages of the asymmetric key based credential over traditional symmetric keys which we have been using for decades is finally attainable with the PKOC standard. A public key-based solution can not be underestimated in its value over traditional credential solutions. 

The PSIA recently introduced the PKOC Bluetooth 3.0 specification at GSX 2024. The 3.0 spec features enhanced cryptography, which supports all Bluetooth hardware. In addition, the spec has been optimized to reduce the time it takes to authenticate.

The PKOC specification leverages the concept of PKI without the need for the typical complex, expensive identity Infrastructure necessary for PKI. PKOC uses the device itself to generate the private & public key pair, (known as Keygen) enabling the private-public key handshake to authenticate the credential. The beauty of PKOC is that the private key never leaves the device, and the public key becomes the “badge #” which can be easily shared with any system or device used to control access. With PKOC the USER literally “owns” the encryption keys and does not require any complicated process for managing or sharing keys. Furthermore, PKOC enables you to “Bring Your Own Credential” (BYOC).

At the Physical Security Interoperability Alliance, they think security system and device integration should be as simple as the “plug and play” interoperability they take for granted with their computers, laptops, smartphones, televisions, stereo systems and more. Visit: https://psialliance.org

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