When Physical Security Meets Cybersecurity

It is certainly no secret that cybersecurity is ever increasingly a focal point for security professionals. It is now no longer on the periphery, and is of serious concern in the video surveillance market.

Hackers have known for quite some time that video surveillance cameras are some of the easiest to breach pieces of internet connected tech out there. Indeed, there are entire websites devoted to indexing the IPs of unsecured cameras and access control systems around the world. People are actually going online, without any technical skill, and doing things like turning the lights on and off in stadiums and spying on people though the camera they have placed in their living room.

But many security integrators and dealers lag behind in this area. Although manufactures can be relied on to a point, having at least one member of the team with the know-how to encrypt drives and understand authentication applications. For example, two-factor authentication, now coming standard on some servers, uses “two PIN codes added to [a] Windows Server login — one as a primary password, the other a randomized PIN generated by [a] paired smartphone app, giving integrators an added layer of security”. ( www.sdmmag.com )

Being able to link a system to a two-step authentication through a specific cell number is actually a pretty strong defense against hackers, who traditionally access these systems through manufacturer back doors, “zero-day” exploits, or simply by using “packet sniffing” programs to watch your traffic and pull the IP and MAC address on your devices.

The prevailing opinion online seems to be that those dealers/integrators who do not keep up with this virtual counterpart to the physical systems they install will risk putting in systems that could be compromised and even lost to hackers.

“You can spend millions of dollars on securing your system, and then your password is compromised.” ( www.sdmmag.com )

With this concern in mind, Security Technology of South Texas, Inc is continually exploring ways with our manufacturing partners to create a more security network environment for our security solutions. If you would like to know more, please give us a call at 855-688-2718  or email us at admin@gostst.com .