This week: Allegion posts its strongest quarter on record, and Lee wonders if the company everyone compares it to is even its peer anymore. The theme: an industry still keeping score on yesterday's scorecard while the game moved somewhere else.

In this episode:
- Allegion's record Q2, and why the ASSA ABLOY comparison is getting useless
-ASSA ABLOY buys Classic Brass, the bolt-on discipline that keeps working
-The camera "box" is dying: steel lasts 10 years, the software ages like milk AMAG's new CTO, an outside-the-industry hire
-Trusted identity and elections (Donna Chapman), and post-quantum encryption (Sal D'Agostino)
- My View: the six-foot table nobody's leveraging, and Planck's Principle, science advances one funeral at a time

ACS26: Hamilton, New Zealand, October 6-7. Full agenda at ACS26.tacc.me.

Everyone watched the World Cup. Almost nobody saw the security operation running underneath it — or the deal that just redrew the access control map.

This week on Secured, the industry's platform era stops being a theory. SwiftConnect signs a definitive agreement to acquire HID's Workforce Business Unit — HID SAFE, Visitor Manager, EasyLobby, and HID Integration Services — with HID taking a minority stake and Björn Lidefelt's HID making its fourth divestiture in months. Then, the story nobody told: Secure Passage turned its Kansas City headquarters into the Joint Operations Center for the World Cup, with Haystax and Truman tracking hundreds of public safety personnel across dozens of agencies in real time. Plus: The Security Breakdown and the Access Control Executive Brief merge into The Secured Brief, the PhySec Collective becomes The Secured Collective (launching August 3, free for everyone), Tony Dong's breakdown of Napco's platform squeeze, Michael Stuer on why day one is the easy part — and My View on why the real TAM for access control is $70 billion, maybe $100 billion. A World Cup ran through one building in Kansas City. The thing holding it together was identity.

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Tickets and full agenda for ACS26 New Zealand: acs26.tacc.me

This week, Lee breaks down why VTS — which covers over 60% of Class A office space in the US — walked away from building access control in-house to partner with SwiftConnect instead, and what that says about where real value lives in this industry. Then, access control data goes mainstream as Kastle Systems' Mark Ein appears on CNBC's Closing Bell to talk occupancy data across 3,500 buildings in 138 cities. Lee also flags a collaborative article on access control fragmentation, highlights two reads from the Security Breakdown on electric locks and alarm fatigue, and makes his case for naming the next era of the industry: Intelligent Access.

In this episode of "Secured," Lee Odess breaks down one of the most talked-about security stories of the week: the viral Empire State Building climb and engagement, dissecting not just the spectacle but the physical security questions it raises for one of the world’s most surveilled buildings. He also covers Dormakaba’s acquisition of the UK’s leading movable wall distributor, Style Group, and unpacks what the move means for the broader security market. The episode spotlights the latest Access Control Executive Brief, diving into iLOQ’s impressive 2025 numbers and what it reveals about the evolution of access control—highlighting a shift into the "intelligent access" era. Lee reviews the growing influence of AI, the role of cloud and mobile, and what these shifts mean for the industry's future. Tune in for industry news, market analysis, and details on the upcoming ACS 26 event in New Zealand.

Episode 22 | $4 Billion Says Your Door Controller Is a Cybersecurity Asset. Is Your Company Listening?

This week, Lee breaks down Verkada's move to scale its physical AI platform to 2.4 million devices across 170 countries with new backing from Nvidia — and why the real story isn't the investment, it's the category claim. Then: Accenture pays $4.175 billion for a majority stake in Dragos, Run Zero, and NetRise, and suddenly your door controller looks a lot more like a connected device that needs to be inventoried.

Lee also covers Gallagher Security's new AI-powered visitor management platform, recaps a day spent with locksmiths standing between three worlds at ALOA, and makes the case that this industry has a marketing problem — not a budget problem.

In this episode:
-Verkada scales its physical AI platform to 2.4M devices across 170 countries with new Nvidia backing
-Accenture acquires majority stake in Dragos, Run Zero, and NetRise for $4.175B
-Gallagher Security launches AI-powered visitor management, natively integrated with Command Centre
-A recap from ALOA: locksmiths standing between three worlds
-Tony Dong's breakdown of how (and why) access control companies borrow money
-Big M marketing vs. small m marketing — and why this industry keeps confusing the two

This week, Secured goes live from ALOA — the Associated Locksmiths of America annual show in Las Vegas — with three guests from the locksmith trade reacting in real time to the week's biggest stories in physical security.

Joining Lee: Wayne Winton, Dave O'Toole, and Jason Montague.

This episode focuses on the Secured podcast broadcast directly from the event floor. We have 3 locksmiths joining the conversation to react to the biggest stories shaping physical security right now.

Wayne Winton, Dave O' Toole, and Jason Montague join me to talk about the role locksmiths can play in the $100B electronic access control opportunity.

Their advice was simple. To locksmiths: embrace electronic locks. To manufacturers: engage, because locksmiths have more to offer than most realize.

Simple advice is often the hardest to act on.

My takeaway: this isn’t your grandfather’s locksmith industry anymore, and the ones who engage deeply will be the ones who benefit.

Episode 21 of Secured is live now.

Subscribe for weekly security technology breakdowns, and comment which electronic security devices you want to see covered in our next episode.

Chapters
0:00 Welcome to Secured Live from ALOA
1:52 Guest Introductions and Industry Predictions
4:40 The Shift to Wireless and Ease of Install
8:15 Training the Technology Eager Generation
11:30 The 100 Billion Dollar Market Squeeze
14:50 Moving from Key Cutting to Selling Judgment
18:10 Six Pillars of the Modern Locksmith
21:45 Solution Based Selling and Code Compliance
24:30 Future Trends in Global Smart Lock Adoption
26:45 Advice for Manufacturers and Technicians
28:15 Closing Remarks and Final Thoughts

The security industry is facing a massive inflection point that will define the next fifty years of business. With OpenAI investing 150 million dollars into a formal partner network, the line between security integrators and enterprise software consultants is officially blurring. This episode explores why waiting for the market to settle is the riskiest strategy you can take right now.

Chapters:

0:00 OpenAI’s 150M Dollar Bet
2:12 Triton Partners and Nordic Consolidation
3:35 Deep Dive into Industry Verticals
4:15 Insights from the CSA Unify Event
6:20 The Cost of Waiting on Standards
8:05 Aliro: The New Era of Access Control
9:15 Travel Updates and ACS 26 New Zealand

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Welcome to Secured Presents: West to East, a 45+ episode series filmed live at ISC West where we bring the biggest voices in security into real, unfiltered conversations.

In this episode, we’re joined by Charles Johnson Founder and CEO of NGA Security Advisors LLC

We dive into:

This conversation looks beyond the technology and into the decisions, environments, and responsibilities that ultimately shape security outcomes.

This series is about more than trends. It’s about capturing an industry in motion.

Let us know in the comments: Are organizations doing enough to identify and document foreseeable security risks?

Welcome to Secured Presents: West to East, a 45+ episode series filmed live at ISC West where we bring the biggest voices in security into real, unfiltered conversations.

In this episode, we’re joined by Jean-Baptiste Milan, Global OEM Sales Manager at HID, and Carter Kennedy, CEO of Soloinsight.

We dive into:

This conversation explores what happens when biometrics, identity, and access workflows come together to answer bigger questions about who is in a building and what they should be able to access.

The episode also touches on Invisible Doors, a book exploring physical identity governance failures and the business value of solving them.

This series is about more than trends. It’s about capturing an industry in motion.

Let us know in the comments: Is physical identity governance the next evolution of access control?

Welcome to Secured Presents: West to East, a 45+ episode series filmed live at ISC West where we bring the biggest voices in security into real, unfiltered conversations.

In this episode, we’re joined by Jacob Hengel, CTO of YourSix.

In this episode, we dive into:

This conversation explores how video is becoming a more active part of security strategy.

This series is about more than trends. It’s about capturing an industry in motion.

Let us know in the comments: Is video becoming the most important layer in security?