Designing Access Control for Failure, Not Perfection

Security systems rarely fail because of a single dramatic breach. More often, they fail quietly — through assumptions, edge cases, and human behavior under stress.

In this episode of Vigilant By Design, host Benjamin Johnson, CPP, PSP, PMP, explores what it means to design access control systems for the world we actually live in, not the one we wish existed.

Rather than chasing the illusion of perfect prevention, this episode focuses on resilience, containment, and recovery — the principles that protect people and property when controls degrade or fail.

We discuss:

• Why mature security design starts by assuming compromise

• The difference between prevention-focused and containment-focused access control

• How layered technologies, procedures, and protocols work together to limit impact

• Fail-secure vs fail-safe decisions and why defaults are dangerous

• How access control, alarms, surveillance, and policy must operate as a system

• The role of procedures and training when technology alone is not enough

• Why recovery planning is a core security function, not an afterthought

• How human behavior under stress influences security outcomes

• What “controlled failure” looks like in real-world environments

This episode is designed for security leaders, facility managers, and decision-makers who understand that security is not about perfection — it’s about designing systems that fail gracefully.

When access control is built to detect failure, contain movement, support response, and recover quickly, it protects lives even when things go wrong.

Security isn’t about fear.
It’s about design.

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