Companies will be able to tighten their security by linking their computer networks with their building monitoring systems as part of a new service coming from IBM Corp. and General Electric Co.
The service, which IBM and GE planned to announce Friday and begin selling this fall, would let companies impose security measures that might seem like common sense, but are hard or even impossible if computer networks and physical monitoring systems are separate.
By connecting those systems, a computer network could know that once an employee had gone home for the day--because, say, he swiped a badge past an electronic reader that let him into the parking garage--no one should use his name and password to log on to a computer in the building. Or once another employee arrived in the morning, the network would know not to grant access to someone trying to log in from her home computer. Similarly, an office security system could refuse to let an employee into one building if the computer network registered that she was using her computer in another building at the moment.
IBM and GE believe their service will help companies better guard against theft of passwords and electronic ID badges and prevent unauthorized access by employees.