Network / IP security - Expert commentary

A bright, high quality lens, a responsive high sensitivity sensor and great imageprocessing produce a good low light performance  If you’ve been to any surveillance trade show, or picked up an industry magazine in the past few years, you will have noticed that almost every camera manufacturer seems to be talking about low light. Some have specific, dedicated low light products with named technologies, while others claim low light capabilities across their whole prod...

For the second year in a row, Canon made the biggest M&A move in the security marketplace in 2015. How could Canon top the industry shockwaves it created in 2014 when the Japanese giant acquired VMS company Milestone Systems? That’s easy: They bought Axis Communications for $2.8 billion in 2015.   Although the Canon-Axis deal grabbed the most headlines and was easily the most shocking M&A announcement of 2015, it was certainly not the only big news on the mergers...

Video surveillance technologies such as solar and wireless security which are cost-effective and sustainable have witnessed increased adoption. Innovative end-user focused security companies will flourish in the coming years as new market verticals are looking to address security issues.   Evolution of surveillance Looking back over the past year, it is easy to see how the security industry has continued to realise substantial gains. Some of these gains have been financial, s...

Overall, 2015 was an interesting year for the security industry and Panasonic. We’ve seen some exciting advancements in surveillance technology, including a strong uptick in body-worn cameras for law enforcement. The transition to IP cameras continues; but with economic ups and downs, we also saw customers hanging on to existing systems longer than expected, so providing support and helping them migrate at their own pace will continue to be a priority for us. From a global perspective, the...

For many years, the physical security industry seemed at a standstill, maintaining the status quo. In recent years, it’s become clear that change is a constant, effectively altering the landscape of the systems integration industry and all it encompasses.   In 2015, we continued to see the proliferation of news about the Internet of Things (loT) and the ways in which connected systems and technologies will affect both the manufacturing and installation communities. As mo...

Overall 2015 has been a year of increased public sector spending (as the UK economy continues to emerge from the recession), which has been highly beneficial to the security industry. This trend has been particularly evident in the healthcare and education sectors, which are key markets for TDSi. Nobody could have predicted the significant number of international security and terrorism threats this year. Undoubtedly this will result in even closer ties among the security industry, police and se...

SourceSecurity.com’s Expert Panel had a lot to say in 2015 on a variety of topics in our Roundtable discussions.   Not surprisingly, the discussion topics that have generated the most interest (in terms of how much visitor traffic they generated) are the same hot topics we hear about every day in the industry. Our very most-clicked-on Roundtable discussion in 2015 was about the impact of video on privacy rights. Other hot topics that made the Top-10 list of Roundtable d...

Video surveillance technology continues to evolve at a strong pace with improvements in resolution, integration, intelligence and bandwidth utilisation – all of which contribute to better overall security and cost-efficiency. As the video surveillance category continues to grow, we spoke with Jeff Whitney, Arecont Vision’s Vice President of Marketing, about some of the factors driving the market.   Maturity of integrated systems There continues to be a great deal...

The year 2015 has been notable in several ways. Industry changes include a rise in Chinese manufacturers in the mid- to low-end market, more mobile devices providing video surveillance, and the rise of omnidirectional and higher-megapixel cameras. Unexpectedly, the industry also saw an increase in popularity of do-it-yourself security systems and the speed with which Chinese companies saturated the marketplace with “good enough” products. Omni-directional cameras Oncam welcomes th...

The security industry continued to grow in 2015, although it was a bit slower than expected. Most noticeably, we saw a lot of M&A activity throughout the industry, including our own new ownership under Canon. Business continues as usual, and we have and will maintain our separate brand. The industry also experienced more price pressure on hardware than in previous years. Axis U.S. expansion plans 2016, IP video, IoT The discussion of price versus value will be a common one in 2016. There...

Hackers probably take more interest in your home computer and information about your identity stored there As the Internet of Things (IoT) grows, so does the hackable universe. Equipment designers need to start thinking about security in the first steps of manufacturing products, and companies and individuals need to start implementing secure coding practices to avoid hacking incidents. Last July, for instance, two security researchers hacked the computer in a Chrysler Jeep a...

A lower bitrate reduces bandwidth andstorage requirements High definition and megapixel cameras provide more detailed images with more useful information, but this can come at a cost. The volume of data being transported and stored rises significantly. The bandwidth demand that this places on the network and the increase in required storage capacity adds significantly to the total IP system costs. The best place to reduce these costs is at the source – in the camera &nda...

Modern home security systems have come of age with innovative technologies that enable homeowners to have complete control over every aspect of the system. MOBOTIX’s Keith Jernigan Sr. and Hunter Fort explore the immense capabilities smart video surveillance technology to make a huge impact on the home automation systems by driving down energy costs as well as storing massive amounts of data. Home automation is not as new as most people would imagine. It has been around for several decade...

The Eiffel tower illuminated with colours of the French national flag on November 16 Let’s say it up front: The physical security sector has limited solutions to address events like those in Paris on the 13th November. The series of coordinated terrorist attacks consisted of mass shootings, suicide bombings, and hostage-taking in which 129 people died. Among the dead were 89 people at the Bataclan theatre where American band Eagles of Death Metal was playing at the t...

Ethernet switches are often overlooked andsometimes deemed a cheap connectivity pointwith little to no importance The Ethernet switch is a critical link between cameras, network video recorders (NVRs) and computers that need access to video feeds. The Ethernet switch not only provides the data connectivity but often the power to the IP cameras via Power over Ethernet (PoE). Ethernet switches are the fundamental backbone of a Local Area Network (LAN) and the critical connectivi...

The IoT threat is magnified asuncontrolled devices are introduced into thenetwork through people ‘bringing their owndevices to work’ Intelligent building management, combined with the dramatic increase in IP connected devices brought about by the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT), provides a vast opportunity for large organisations to work smarter, faster and more efficiently than ever before. Intelligent building management systems have the potentia...

Safer has built a reputation of notcompromising on quality for a low price,leading to increases in overseas sales in 2015 Unfazed by the number of companies following the footsteps of Hikvision and Dahua and launching their own branded product lines, one Chinese company insists on carving out its name in the manufacturing sector. Established in 2002, Shenzhen Safer Science and Technology, or Safer as the company is commonly known, acknowledges that it cannot c...

CPSE Shenzhen showcased security productsacross 11 halls. The show is arguably thelargest and most influential in Asia  China is the largest security market in the world. This makes the annual China Public Security Expo (CPSE) a force to be reckoned with and a place to be seen for every security company. Boasting 11 halls over an area of 110,000 m2 and more than 6,000 booths, CPSE is listed as one of the largest and, certainly, one of the most influential s...

The IP surveillance market is taking anunusually long time to reach maturity, partiallydue to lack of industry standards  Video surveillance has been a growth industry ever since the release of the first IP security camera in the mid-1990s. Generally, high-growth industries are immature, meaning they have not yet reached a state of equilibrium. This is particularly true in the IP video surveillance market where many new companies enter the market takin...

Derren Lu, CEO of Synology Inc and Scott Lee,Senior Manager of Software DevelopmentGroup for Surveillance Synology – a company founded by two former Microsoft employees – began as a storage solution provider and grew to include surveillance in its product offerings. While many security companies in Taiwan are voicing their concerns over falling sales, Synology is seeing its products grabbing shares in the security market and the sales figures are continuing to grow...

Problems caused by physical systems in terms of cyber-attack are quite extensive, damaging systems and assets  Security experts of various disciplines agree that physical systems are increasingly being leveraged in attacks on organisational networks and supply chains. Many manufacturers maintain that security (including that of security systems) is the responsibility of the end user, which would be fine if they were only expected to maintain security and not create th...

The security industry’s continued migration to networked IP-based systems ensures that PoE will be integral in their design and installation Power over Ethernet (PoE) has without question become the de facto choice of security installers for delivering power to security and access control devices. This should come as no surprise given PoE’s ability to reduce labour and installation costs by delivering power and data over a single cable, thereby increasing overall t...

In the last 10 years CCTV manufacturers havebegun offering video search solutions aimedto reduce time and effort involved in searches Petabytes of security video recorded around the world every day. Obviously, we feel more secure knowing that we can “turn back time” and investigate the past – at least in situations for which video surveillance exists. However, people who have experience requesting CCTV footage would say: “This takes way too much time.&...

For high value individuals such as the Pope,agencies have access to unlimited publicresources in terms of money and people  The Pope’s visit to the United States reminds us that protecting big-name executives, celebrities and dignitaries is a highly specialised security function. Public and private executive protection groups begin preparing for the visit of major world figures months ahead of time. “It is a task of massive proportions,” says Tom M. Con...

NVRs make it easy to benefit from HD solutions and integrations to access control, alarm systems, intercoms and other technologies Developments in the IP video camera market have a direct impact on the other components in a system. With the emergence of higher definition cameras – whether 4K cameras or 8K or even higher – the market now needs back-end devices that can perform the decoding work. Also, more intelligence is needed, including smart functions such as pe...

As technology advances and more surveillance features become available, it can be difficult for security integrators to know which system will fit their customer’s needs It’s no secret that Internet Protocol (IP) cameras are on a steady march to replace analogue video. Network-centric surveillance cameras bring a host of value to the protected premises, above and beyond traditional physical security. Now, cameras are increasingly used for safety, such as in liabili...

NVRs come preinstalled with latest software releases to minimise setup time Looking for a perfect marriage of hardware and software for a video management system application? A preconfigured network video recorder (NVR) appliance may fit the bill. Consider these advantages of going the NVR appliance route, as suggested by vendor companies contacted by SourceSecurity.com. 1. Greater freedom of deployment NVRs provide more application flexibility – because the recorders...

Internet of things is worth the resilience trade-offs it demands – effort, thought and inconvenience ‘No society is more than three meals from revolution’ says the old adage. Updating the idea for the Information Age is a revealing, if somewhat worrying, exercise. How resilient are we as a society? Could your company function efficiently after a complete failure in IT? How effective would your employees be if forced to work from home following a collapse in t...

The potential costs and consequences of hackers getting through firewalls and onto the user’s computer networks can be devastating Theft of NATO data. Leakage of emails. Hackers setting up a live streaming website for over 100 New York City private webcams and even hacking the infrastructure servers of the U.S. government. As news of malicious takeover of private and corporate networks as well as incidents of malicious software programs, referred to as malware, conti...

NVR appliances ease analogue to IP transition by providing end users with a hybrid-ready product There should be a palatable migration path from a large installed base of analogue to the latest IP technology. The biggest missed opportunity related to network video recorder (NVR) NVR appliances in the video surveillance marketplace is effectively using existing analogue camera investments while transitioning to the network. For example, IP encoders can be utilised as a brid...