HSD Partners Nedap and AET Europe Announce Strategic Partnership to Raise the Bar for High Security

On 25 February 2016 HSD partners Nedap and AET Europe announced a strategic partnership to raise the bar for high security. By embedding AET’s electronic identity products in Nedap’s access control platform AEOS door controllers, a converged solution with best of breed technology has become available to the market. The partnership enables companies to meet the highest applicable security standards and raise their protection levels against both physical and digital threats.

AET and Nedap developed a strong relationship after collaborating on several defense projects in Europe. Both have great expertise in high security projects but from different perspectives – Nedap from a physical security background and AET from an ICT security stance. Their collaborations highlighted that, by combining these two perspectives, an even greater level of security can be achieved.

“It’s worrying that ICT and physical security are different worlds following different rules to protect systems,” says Albert Dercksen, Head of R&D at Nedap. “Modern access control systems are, in fact, ICT systems connected to corporate networks. So the methods for strong authentication and secure communication already used as best practice in ICT systems should be applied to physical security.”

To address this, Nedap and AET’s new end-to-end solution combines digital certificate management and card key management in one system. As a consequence, the joint solution meets today’s high security requirements for vital infrastructure projects and is the most advanced system for physical access control currently available on the market.

“Understandably, European national governments are demanding. They constantly need to be several steps ahead in terms of security to defend their countries’ vital infrastructures,” explains Reinoud Weijman, Managing Director at AET. “The experience we and Nedap gained while working on defense projects is so valuable. It is now enabling us to help other organisations and companies to meet the highest security requirements for both physical and digital assets.” Nedap and AET’s joint solution meets a wide variety of security requirements across Europe, and is already being used to protect vital infrastructure in several countries. The fact that card keys are stored securely, for example, meets the Rijkspas requirements for physical access to Dutch government buildings.