"How Secure Is Your Security?" - from EC Mag's Deborah L. O'Mara

"Are your low-voltage and security customers concerned over 'hanging' security cameras on the enterprise network and opening it to potential vulnerabilities? Or are they looking at protecting other parts of their commercial facility that may be housing data and other privileged information? Manufacturers in the physical security industry have those same thoughts and are taking steps to prevent hacking, malicious takeovers, and even data center terrorism and sabotage.

There's good reason for these concerns. News surfaces daily of data theft, email leakage, gaming network circumvention and more, as hackers continue to find ways into communication infrastructures. For example, hackers recently set up a live-streaming website for more than 100 private webcams in New York.

As news of private and corporate network takeovers and incidents of malicious software ('malware') continue in epic proportion, the security industry has become extremely proactive, easing these fears with new partnerships, tactics and technologies.

'The bottom line is: Is your security system secure?' said Charlie Hare, Panasonic;s national category manager, Security and Mobile Video Solutions, Newark, N.J. 'Panasonic is taking proactive steps to secure data from networked video surveillance and camera streams.'

The company recently announced a partnership with Symantec, Mountain View, Calif., the world's largest provider of secure sockets layer (SSL) server certification, to develop more secure video-transmission solutions to prevent data takeover and malicious activity. Called Secure Communication, the company's recent launch of Norton Secured, powered by Symantec, is designed to provide secure data management in video surveillance and address cyber-security incidents that continue to occur, including hacking, data breach, password takeover and tampering.

Hare said Secure Communication is PC-level security for built-in devices such as video surveillance cameras and embedded video management systems (VMS). Secure Communication enables video streams with three pillars of protection: data encryption, communication encryption and verification to maintain evidence and safety of video streams. It specifically protects against spoofing (false data), altering (changing images) and snooping (stealing passwords) of protected surveillance communications. Because its end-points are connected to the network, IP camera installation can compromise that connection.

Panasonic continues to develop technology to put this type of protection on cameras and video surveillance servers. Secure Communication is available on its new Panasonic 3, 5 and 6 Series models.

It 'provides extra layers of protection for Panasonic IP devices,' Hare said. 'It encodes data and encrypts transmission.'

Protection at the appliance level

Security-industry appliances, sometimes referred to as embedded devices, may also be open to hacking or data loss. Razberi Technologies. Farmers Branch, Texas, recently introduced the LocBeri Cyber Security System to prevent unauthorized users from accessing network ports deployed for surveillance cameras.

'The potential costs and consequences of hackers getting through firewalls and onto the user's computer networks can be devastating,' said Rich Anderson, Razberi's chief marketing officer and chief technology officer. 'Whenever you install IP cameras, especially outside on a building, you're potentially opening the network up to others."

He gave an example where college students unplugged exterior cameras and connected their laptops instead to hop onto the network and alter test scores.

'For installers, LocBeri is easy to implement, and the graphical user interface of the VMS software program automatically populates the media access control [MAC] addresses of all ports through a utility software scan and locks down those ports with a single click,' he said. '[It] scans attached cameras and automatically configures the switch so only those cameras work on those ports. There is no major downtime or labor involved when undergoing system maintenance or changing a camera, because one push of a button unlocks all ports to allow for system changes and another push when finished relocks the system, saving the installer programming and installation costs.'

LocBeri is a standard feature on all Razberi ServerSwitch units.

'We're a big proponent of open systems and open architecture, but of course that does bring up concerns of cyber-security threats with everything residing on the network,' said Jack Cabasso, managing director of Aventura, a video management solutions, access control and VMS software manufacturer in Commack, N.Y. 'But, open systems are also more adaptable, and ways to secure the systems can be more readily addressed. It's an area where we need to educate the installation community and users on steps they need to take to secure their video and other environments.'

Creating layers of security, adding new technology and providing end-user education is helping the industry address possible network takeover or other unauthorized activity of surveillance cameras and video-transmission streams."

Source:  http://www.ecmag.com/section/systems/how-secure-your-security