If you look back on the 20-year history of the IP video camera, you can start to see a pattern emerge. IT innovations become catalysts for security innovation. Two decades ago, commercialization of the Internet spawned the idea for a network-based camera that could tap into the amazing connectivity afforded by Internet technology. It was an idea that eventually revolutionized the security industry.
Since that time, we have seen Power over Ethernet — an important innovation in the IT space — kick start widespread adoption of IP-based cameras as an affordable alternative to analog because of the great savings in cabling.
Building on video compression algorithms the IT industry created for consumer electronics, the security industry evolved standards such as MPEG-4 and H.264 to reduce video’s impact on bandwidth consumption and storage. When the IT industry began increasing wireless broadband speeds to support the growing market in mobile devices, security leveraged the LTE capacity to enable users to monitor their video cameras remotely from nearly anywhere in the world using whatever desktop or smart mobile devices they have.
Three major IT advances are changing the security landscape once again: The Internet of Things, cybersecurity and Big Data. Each in its own right has challenged manufacturers to re-imagine how network security systems fit into today’s hyper-connected technology landscape.
The Internet of Things
The Internet of things (IoT) is the network of physical devices, vehicles, thermostats, industrial control systems and other items that have embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and network connectivity to enable these objects to collect and exchange data. In the world of physical security, IP-based cameras were the first devices to launch the Internet of Security Things revolution. In recent years that has been followed by IP-based access control, IP-based intercom and smart IP-based speakers for different audio solutions.
The IoT has essentially changed the world’s concept of the “workplace” forever. The office is no longer defined by four walls or the workday by time zones. The ubiquitous use of smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices makes it possible for users to log onto the corporate network — your company’s, your vendor’s, your strategic business partner’s — at any time and from any place.
The security industry has applied this concept of mobile connectivity to totally transform how users operate and maintain their surveillance systems. Certainly remote system maintenance has replaced a majority of onsite service calls — from health checks, diagnostics and repairs to system upgrades and security patches.
IoT has also made it possible for security integrators to leverage Video as a Service, transforming surveillance from a capital expense to an operating expense. Instead of investing heavily in local hardware and software, users can rely on host providers to manage the system in the cloud, securely housing video content and providing real-time access through protected web portals. This has lowered the financial bar for small and mid-sized companies, allowing them to take advantage of many advanced surveillance technologies at a much lower cost and without extensive technical expertise.
Cybersecurity
A natural outgrowth of IoT is the need for heightened security. IT realized that the potential for unsecure devices to tap into the network raised the risk for security breaches and cyber attacks — so they instituted several standardized security-related network protocols to detect, authenticate and update devices connected to the network. This includes such protocols as HTTP digest authentication, HTTPS, 802.1x, SNMP, SFTP, SSH and remote sylog.
Acknowledging that the camera might be the entry point to the network rather than the ultimate goal of a hacker or port hijacker, video systems by necessity have adopted many of the same IT security protocols, including advanced port-level authentication at the switch to detect and prevent spoofing. Today’s network camera manufacturers are building in a number of customizable configuration options to heighten cybersecurity — everything from establishing least privileged accounts hierarchies, enabling/disabling services, creating auditable system and access logs and initiating detectors such as tampering, reboot and malfunctions. With the addition of encryption, both in storage and transmission of video data, the security industry is taking an active role in addressing the end-to-end cyber risks associated with surveillance devices sharing the network.
But for real system protection to occur, cybersecurity technologies have to be paired with strict policies and procedures for using them. Organizations need to publish and enforce hardening guidelines to ensure that the IT infrastructure and connected devices are secured properly. Regular audits must be conducted to verify policies are being followed, and adjustments should be ongoing to address ever-changing cyber threats.
Big Data
In today’s world of information overload, IT has been hard at work developing advanced algorithms that turn vast collections of data into meaningful business intelligence. Revealing patterns, trends and associations, especially related to human behavior and interaction, the analytics are helping companies to improve sales, operations and the bottom line.
This has sparked a revolution in the surveillance industry to devise analytics to glean valuable business intelligence from video data as well. Today’s video analytics have become quantifiable metrics tools for any number of insights. For example, people counting or store traffic analysis is being used to determine customer sales conversion rates as well as staffing requirements throughout the business day. Dwell time analysis or stickiness is being used to optimize product placement and stock replenishment as well as detect loitering that might indicate potential theft in progress. Other analytics such as queue length monitoring are being used to measure wait times and change staffing assignments on the fly. Still other algorithms provide smart search capabilities to speed up access to specific forensic video. The versatility of actionable business intelligence gleaned from video analytics has crossed departmental lines from marketing and merchandising to training, vendor management and operations.
In city-wide deployments, network camera analytics are being used to better manage traffic flow on highways and city streets on the fly. Intelligent applications such as vehicle counting and license plate recognition are helping police anticipate when to redirect traffic from congested roadways and identify and track vehicles fleeing from the scene of a crime. With the ability to aggregate data from different surveillance cameras and other security systems, operators gain a thorough picture of the situation so they can quickly and accurately take the right decisions.
The Next IT/IP Security Revolution
If the past is any indication of the future, the IT world and the security world will continue to be inextricably linked. With smarter compression techniques and higher resolution technology on the IT horizon, it is a sure bet that manufacturers will eventually incorporate those innovations into the IP security landscape as well. As IP connected cameras, access control systems and other physical security devices become smarter sensors, our IoT world will become a safer place to be.
Fredrik Nilsson is VP, Americas for Axis Communications Inc., and is the author of “Intelligent Network Video: Understanding Modern Video Surveillance Systems,” published by CRC Press. To request more info about Axis, visit www.securityinfowatch.com/10212966.
