Larry Anderson's Security Beat

The threat of drones is a growing concern around the perimeter and in the airspace surrounding airports. According to a UK Airprox Board report, the number of times a drone endangered the safety of an aircraft in the UK airspace rose more than a third in 2018 compared to the year before. The highest-profile recent drone incident was at UK’s Gatwick Airport, where a drone sighting last December triggered a three-day shutdown of the UK’s second busiest airport, disrupted the travel p...

Krowd is an app that connects people together based on geography; that is, if they are at the same place at the same time. Users sign into the app using the local WiFi, identify themselves by username, and are placed immediately in a group chat comprising anyone else at the location who has signed into the app. An enhancement of the Krowd app, known as Krowdsafe, leverages the technology to achieve and promote security and safety. Specifically, Krowdsafe enables users to interact directly with...

IFSEC Global, like any large trade show, can be daunting for attendees. At big shows, there can be hundreds of physical security manufacturers and dealers vying for your attention. As the scope of physical security expands from video surveillance and access control to include smart building integrations, cybersecurity and the Internet of Things (IoT), there is an increasing amount of information to take in from education sessions and panels. With IFSEC Global approaching next week, we present e...

As political winds present new challenges for Chinese companies doing business in the U.S. market, the countdown is under way to implementation of a ban on sale of Chinese manufacturers’ video surveillance products to the Federal government. Some good news is a delay enacting the wider-reaching “blacklist” aspects of the ban. Meanwhile, possible sanctions to prevent U.S. manufacturers from selling components to Chinese companies are posing immediate public relations difficult...

Panasonic is selling off 80% of its video surveillance business to a private equity firm but will retain 20%, and the new company will continue to use the well-known Panasonic brand. The move is aimed at reinvigorating a business challenged by new competition from large Chinese companies and lower prices of video surveillance equipment. Strategic business alliances Panasonic is establishing a new company made up of its security systems business, and Polaris Capital Group Co. will acquire 80%...

Attendees strolling the exhibit hall at IFSEC International, 18-20 June, 2019, at ExCel London, will be hearing a lot about artificial intelligence, convergence and GDPR. These industry hot topics are representative of major trends in the industry, from new technologies to new ways of designing systems to new privacy requirements. The education sessions at IFSEC International will also address these timely subjects – and provide a welcome chance to sit down and consider the ‘bigger...

Who is more likely to rob your home – a friend or a stranger? Is a burglary more likely to occur when you are at home or away? Does gun ownership contribute to more effective home security? What about a loud, barking dog? A recent survey by Reviews.org considered these and other consumer preconceptions about home security and how they compare with the facts. "Everyone wants to feel safe at home but not everyone knows which home safety measures will actually help protect them,” say...

While most security teams are focused on preventing malicious outsider attacks, recent data suggests that close to 30 percent of confirmed breaches today involve insiders. Today’s increasingly complex networks across physical, information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) systems make it difficult for security teams to detect and prevent insider threats. This is compounded by the proliferation of data, devices, applications, and users accessing networked resources. Rising i...

The focus of the global security industry will shift to London this month for IFSEC International, Europe’s ‘integrated’ security event focusing on the latest technologies and the opportunity to learn from the industry’s top leaders and experts. IFSEC will be held from 18-20 June, 2019, at ExCel London, welcoming 27,000 security directors and managers, installers, integrators and distributors. The exhibition at IFSEC may not be as large as previous years, and several bi...

Among the cloud’s many impacts on the physical security market is a democratisation of access control. Less expensive cloud systems are making electronic access control affordable even to smaller companies. Cloud-based access control  With the growing cloud-based access control market, integrators can find more opportunities in small businesses and vertical markets that typically wouldn’t be on the radar of their sales team. Large upfront costs for a server, software and annua...

Facial recognition has seen huge breakthroughs since the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) first began testing in 2010. Accuracy has seen massive gains, especially from 2013-2018. In the 2018 test, the most accurate algorithm was 20 times more accurate than the 2013 equivalent. Essentially, 95 percent of the matches that failed in 2013 now yield correct results. Compare that to 2010-2013, when the most accurate algorithm reduced its error rate by 30 percent. This reduc...

Coming off a successful ISC West show, Honeywell is sharply focussed on product development, with an emphasis on advanced software. “We have a strong new product pipeline this year – more than two times the number of products than we’ve released in the past several years,” says Luis Rodriguez, Director of Product Marketing, Honeywell Commercial Security. “At ISC West, we received a lot of interest in how AI and new security systems are changing the market.”...