Written By: Brad Campbell | September 29, 2026
Government buildings, hospitals, data centers, and other critical infrastructure facilities share one thing in common: if they are compromised, the consequences reach far beyond the walls of the facility itself. That makes these sites prime targets for bad actors.
While most conversations around critical infrastructure security revolve around cyber threats, the physical security of these facilities is just as important.
If an intruder or active threat breaches a facility, they can damage systems, compromise data, or harm personnel, and a digital firewall does nothing to protect against physical threats.
Security glazing plays a central role in securing critical facilities against threats.
Critical infrastructure consists of the systems, technologies, services, and facilities essential to the running of a country, including government functions and the well-being of its citizens.
Thus, critical infrastructure security involves the protection of things like:
Any type of critical infrastructure has the potential to be targeted by bad actors, whether sponsored by a foreign state or for personal reasons.
These days, attacks on critical infrastructure are largely cyberattacks, but there’s still a very real threat of physical attacks on facilities, especially government buildings but also any other type of commercial facility housing vital operations, equipment, data, assets, and people.
For the purposes of this article, we’ll be focusing on security glazing as a physical critical infrastructure security solution that can be used to protect a wide range of facilities against forced entry and active threats.
Glazing is one of the most common weak points in any facility’s building envelope. Every window, glass door, or glazed wall is a potential entry point for bad actors, and standard glazing is not built to withstand a determined attacker.
In order to choose the right glazing to support critical infrastructure security, it’s important to first understand where ordinary commercial glass fails.
Annealed glass, the plain sheet or float glass found in many commercial buildings, offers essentially no resistance to forced entry or other impacts. It breaks into large, jagged shards that pose an injury risk on top of the security failure.
Tempered glass improves on this somewhat, offering roughly three to five times the strength of annealed glass and breaking into small, granular pieces that are far less dangerous. However, that added strength still isn’t enough to deter, let alone stop, a determined intruder.
Neither of these glass types was designed with forced entry or ballistic threats in mind. So, while tempered glass may be required by code in some areas, facilities protecting sensitive operations, data, or personnel need to look elsewhere to reinforce vulnerable glass.
Security glazing made from polycarbonate, sometimes combined with acrylic for added performance benefits, is hundreds of times more resistant to impacts than any type of commercial glass. It’s also much lighter than standard glass, which makes it ideal for retrofitting into or onto existing frames, protecting the original glass behind without needing to replace it.
Glass-clad polycarbonate (GCP) takes this a step further, combining the strength of polycarbonate on the interior (safe side) with the surface hardness and appearance of glass on the exterior (attack side). The result is a type of security glazing that remains intact even under sustained impact, yet has all the physical properties of glass on the surface people are most likely to see and interact with.
GCP is also a glazing material capable of meeting some of the highest ballistic and blast resistance ratings. Even if the outer layer of glass is penetrated or impacted hard enough to fracture, it does so in a spider-web pattern, rather than shattering. The shards of glass stay bonded to the polycarbonate core and there’s no inward spalling.
For securing critical infrastructure facilities where forced entry, ballistic attacks, or blast exposure are realistic threats, implementing a combination of polycarbonate and glass-clad polycarbonate security glazing throughout the facility is a key step in mitigating the risks.
The goal of a forced entry attempt is to create an opening that’s large enough for a person to reach through and open a door from the inside or to physically pass through themselves.
Security glazing mitigates this risk by drastically extending the amount of time it takes an attacker to accomplish that, often preventing it altogether. This buys valuable time for security or law enforcement response, containing the active threat and protecting the critical infrastructure and people within the facility alike.
Glazing cannot eliminate the risk of a blast event, but it can reduce the harm that follows one.
Some polycarbonate and glass-clad polycarbonate glazing is GSA-compliant. Such glazing can help disperse shockwave energy and hold broken glazing material together instead of letting it become flying shrapnel, which is one of the leading causes of injury in a blast incident.
While physically keeping bad actors out and protecting people from harm are both key elements of critical infrastructure security, there’s also the risk of insiders spying.
Specialized glazing products can help shield a facility against electronic eavesdropping, supporting compliance with secure communications standards for government and other sensitive facilities.
Additionally, security glazing can be reflectively tinted, creating a one-way glass effect that prevents people on one side from seeing through to the other. This can protect sensitive screens, documents, and conversations from prying eyes.
There’s even a type of specialized tinting film that makes LED/LCD screens appear completely black to viewers on the other side of the glass.
Critical infrastructure carries a level of risk that ordinary glazing simply isn’t built to handle. Whether the concern is forced entry, ballistic threats, blast exposure, or surveillance, the right glazing solution can go a long way towards mitigating the full range of threats a facility faces.
Riot Glass works with government, healthcare, financial, industrial, and other critical facilities to assess threats, identify vulnerabilities, and implement security glazing solutions matched to real-world risks.
Contact our team today to discuss a security glazing plan.
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