Larry Anderson's Security Beat

Consolidation continued in the physical security marketplace in the turbulent year 2020. There were several mega-deals in addition to shuffling among small and medium-sized companies. Here is a sampling of M&A from this year, compiled from our archive of company news. With the changing economic climate, how much more is ahead in 2021? Stay tuned. Wesco merges with Anixter WESCO International, Inc., a provider of business-to-business (B2B) distribution, logistics services and supply chain...

The coronavirus pandemic had a monumental impact on all aspects of the business world, including the security industry. However, amid the gloom and doom, many security professionals also saw opportunity: New ways the industry’s products could be applied to address the challenges of coping with the virus. This article will review some of those opportunities, based on our reporting throughout the year and including links back to the original articles. During and after the pandemic, security...

The cloud is here to stay. Its resilience and ability to connect the world during during the COVID-19 pandemic has proved its worth, even to the uninitiated who have now witnessed first-hand the value of connected systems. Video and access control as a service provides a flexible and fluid security and business solution to meet the demands of a rapidly evolving industry, where the changing threat landscape means investing in the cloud is an investment towards success. This article will look ba...

As the new Chief Executive Officer of Milestone Systems, Thomas Jensen pledges to continue the company’s focus on protecting people and assets and to help organisations gain insight and optimise their business processes. Seeking to fulfil Milestone’s mission to ‘Make the World See,’ Jensen will maintain Milestone’s approach of being an open video management system (VMS) platform and having an open company culture. End-user communities “I will also be worki...

Many employers faced a need to ramp up hiring of drivers to meet a higher demand for product deliveries and transportation logistics during the COVID-19 pandemic. To meet the demand for drivers, employers had to make quick hiring decisions while also ensuring products were still being delivered in a timely fashion.  Safe work environment Businesses have a duty of care to provide a safe working environment for their employees and contractors. It is therefore important to limit exposing dri...

Zigbee is a familiar name in the smart home arena, and the Zigbee Alliance is expanding its technology approach to address the challenges of the Internet of Things. As the Internet of Things (IoT) has evolved, the need has become obvious for stronger unity among brands and ecosystems to enable products within smart environments to work together more easily. Working to serve that need is the Zigbee Alliance, which seeks to promote collaboration in the Internet of Things by creating, evolving, an...

Close collaboration with customers has been a hallmark of the physical security industry for decades. And yet, less ability to collaborate face-to-face to discuss customer needs has been a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. “True innovation, which comes from close collaboration with customers, is more difficult to achieve remotely,” said Howard Johnson, President and COO, AMAG Technology, adding “Not being able to visit in person has not been helpful. Kurt John, Chief Cybe...

The COVID-19 pandemic has provided a double challenge to physical security systems integrators. For one thing, they have had to adapt their own businesses to survive and thrive during the pandemic. On the other hand, they have also been faced with new challenges to serve their customer’s changing needs. Global pandemic effects One integrator company, North American Video (NAV) took the now-familiar steps most companies confronted to adapt their business model to operations in a global pa...

Combining artificial intelligence (AI) with cloud video creates systems that are smarter, safer and more cost-effective. Furthermore, adding AI capabilities can widen the advantage gap of cloud video systems compared to on-premise systems, especially for cost-conscious end users. “We strongly believe the total cost of ownership (TCO) for cloud systems is more affordable,” says Ken Francis, President of cloud video surveillance company Eagle Eye Networks. “And introducing reall...

John Wiegand died in 1986, but the communications protocol that bears his name is still alive and well, connecting access control readers to controllers using two wires – one to transmit “zeros” and the other to transmit “ones.” The Wiegand protocol persists despite its limitations, including one-way communication, lack of encryption, and inability to manage the readers in a system centrally. In a Wiegand system, a controller provides no acknowledgement that data ha...

Historically, concerns about inclusion and diversity have not been widely discussed in the security market. In the last couple of years, however, the Security Industry Association (SIA) and other groups have worked to raise awareness around issues of diversity and inclusion. Specifically, SIA’s Women in Security Forum has focused on the growing role of women in all aspects of security, and SIA’s RISE community has focused on “rising stars” in an industry previously domin...

Can a smart card be used securely for multiple applications (and among multiple manufacturers )? End users are demanding such interoperability, and they also want openness to switching out components of their access control systems in the future without being “locked in” to one vendor. Those are the goals of the LEAF Identity consortium, a collection of companies that share and support end user-owned encryption keys stored securely in smart cards with MIFARE DESFire EV2 chips and ar...

Facial recognition is becoming more popular in newer systems for access control — a shift that began before the pandemic and has intensified with a market shift toward “touchless” systems. A new facial recognition platform is emerging that responds to the access control industry’s increased interest in facial recognition by expanding the concept with a new higher level of technology. At the core of the new system is high-performance, true-3D sensing with facial depth ma...

Trade shows have always been a basic element of how the security industry does business - until the year 2020, that is. This year has seen the total collapse of the trade show model as a means of bringing buyers and sellers face to face. The COVID-19 pandemic has effectively made the idea of a large trade show out of the question. Today, even air travel seems incredibly risky, or at minimum a huge hassle. The good news is that the industry has adapted well without the shows. A series of “...

Ethics are an important – but some might argue, undervalued – aspect of the security marketplace. To kindle the industry’s interest in ethics, the Security Industry Association (SIA) in early 2019 created a working group on Ethics in Security Technology. The working group developed a list of ethical principles, which were approved by the organisation’s Executive Committee and Board of Directors and became the SIA Membership Code of Ethics. SIA member companies must adher...

If one employee stands less than six feet away from another employee, a fob attached to a lanyard around his or her neck emits an auditory beep – an immediate reminder to observe social distancing. If an employee were to be diagnosed with COVID-19, a cloud-based database provides a record of who at the company the sick employee had contact with. These capabilities of HID Location Services ensure social distancing and provide contact tracing to enable companies to return to work safely. Th...

Within days, a rule will take effect that bans from U.S. government contracts any companies that “use” video products from Chinese companies Hikvision and Dahua. The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) rule implements the “blacklist” (or “Part B”) provision of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which is understood in the security industry as prohibiting dealers and integrators that do business with the federal government from selling Chinese-made...

As a cloud-based platform for service providers in the security, smart home and smart business markets, Alarm.com has adapted quickly to changing conditions during the coronavirus pandemic. In the recent dynamic environment, Alarm.com has kept focus on supporting their service provider partners so they can keep local communities protected. “We moved quickly to establish work-from-home protocols to protect our employees and minimise impact on our partners,” says Anne Ferguson, VP of...

The general public doesn’t give much thought to the important role of security officers in creating and promoting safer environments. The low-profile work of security officers is vital to protecting people, places and property. During the pandemic, newer aspects to that role have emerged. Security personnel have been called on to perform diverse tasks such as managing queues at the supermarket, safeguarding testing centres and hospitals, ensuring food deliveries, and supporting police pa...

Trends in the alarm industry point to a need for a software system that accommodates business patterns such as recurring monthly revenue (RMR). Workhorse Service Company provides a software that combines customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP) and field service management (FSM) into a “cradle-to-grave” system designed specifically for the alarm industry. “Making an alarm sale is different than making a CCTV sale, and the processes for the sal...

Governments around the world use facial recognition for applications such as identifying persons on public video feeds. The technology is also used by police for internal databases and as a component of ID verification for elections and/or airport security. In fact, the use of facial recognition technology is increasing globally. Surfshark, provider of virtual private networks (VPNs), collated the latest data on face surveillance around the world and distilled it into a map that shows which co...

Sooner or later (hopefully sooner), the novel coronavirus global pandemic will allow workplaces to reopen. But as we move into this recovery phase, there are many questions surrounding the transition. How can companies ensure facilities are in acceptable working order to reopen? How do they decide who is coming back and when? How will social distancing impact the operation of a company’s physical access control system? How can companies ensure that both visitors and employees are aware of...

Spread of the novel coronavirus has jolted awareness of hygiene as it relates to touching surfaces such as keypads. No longer in favour are contact-based modalities including use of personal identification numbers (PINs) and keypads, and the shift has been sudden and long-term. Both customers and manufacturers were taken by surprise by this aspect of the virus’s impact and are therefore scrambling for solutions. Immediate impact of the change includes suspension of time and attendance sys...

Arteco’s VCA video analytics system is their latest new product, signalling a move from machine vision-based analytics to deep learning video analytics. A server – separate from the Arteco video management system (VMS) – manages the algorithms for the analytics. Arteco has been field-testing the product for a year and a half and had planned to launch it officially at ISC West in March (which was postponed). In lieu of the trade show launch, the company has been presenting the p...

The next step in the journey of digital transformation, the fifth generation of wireless communications technologies (5G) will have an enormous impact on mankind, and on every industry including security. In short, 5G will disrupt the way we live and work. To discuss the changes, we presented our questions to Benoît Jouffrey, VP 5G Expertise at Thales, which is at the forefront of the transformation with an emphasis on trust and security. Following are his responses. Q: In layman's terms,...

The COVID-19 global pandemic will have a profound and lasting impact on the physical security industry. It will boost adoption of new technologies to address new types of threats. It will map out a path for new involvement of physical security technologies in areas of public health. It will raise new notions of privacy and turn previous thinking about privacy on its head. And the aftermath of the pandemic will give rise to all these changes in a breathtakingly accelerated timeframe. In the wak...

The drive for learning doesn’t diminish, even in times of a global pandemic. To accommodate the demands of social distancing, more training today happens online. “We have seen unprecedented international demand for our portfolio of online training courses ranging from small installation companies to the largest organisations, across a wide range of sectors,” says Jerry Alfandari, Group Marketing Manager of Linx International Group, a U.K. training firm. “More than ever,...

Axis Communications has introduced a body-worn camera solution, which the company says represents a natural extension of their corporate vision, business strategy and core competence. The new body-worn cameras and other elements of the system will provide Axis new opportunities to grow by tapping into existing and new customers. The fast-growing body-worn camera market is an attractive one, and Axis sees opportunities to extend the use of body-worn cameras beyond the current core market of poli...

Even though ISC West 2020 was cancelled, many of the product introductions planned for the trade show still happened. For example, physical security and secure identification company Identiv introduced the Hirsch Velocity Cirrus and MobilisID. Hirsch Velocity Cirrus is a cloud-based Access Control as a Service (ACaaS) solution. It is an optimal solution for both end-users and integrators, with lower upfront costs, reduced maintenance, enhanced portability, and the future-proof assurance of auto...

The global pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus is changing work environments to an unprecedented degree. More employees than ever are being asked to work remotely from home. Along with the new work practices comes a variety of security challenges. Without the proper precautions, working from home could become a cybersecurity nightmare, says Purdue University professor Marcus Rogers. “Criminals will use the crisis to scam people for money, account information and more,” he says....