​BUSINESS NEWS

Combating human rights abuses can be challenging, because victims are often unable or unwilling to protest and prove their claims. U.K. nonprofit Videre Est Creder (seeing is believing) puts cameras and other tools in the hands of oppressed people and trains them to document oppression.

One instrument that helps the group organize the resulting data is Sentinel Visualizer software from FMS Advanced Systems Group. The program allows users to store and analyze information on people, places, and things and how they relate to each other. It handles videos, charts, maps, timelines, and social network analysis, and it creates visual displays and metrics that describe relationships within large data sets. Videre Est Creder officials say the software is vital to their mission.

PARTNERSHIPS AND DEALS 

Abercrombie & Fitch is using the Interceptas fraud-prevention platform from Accertify to protect against credit card fraud.

Proximity readers, door stations, and door controllers from Access Control Technology have been installed in residences at the University of Gdansk in Poland. The hardware was installed by MEGREZ Gdansk and Autoryzowany Zaklad Instalacji Antywlamaniowych “El-mig.”

AMAG Technology has named Excellium Technologies of Quebec an authorized reseller of its Symmetry solutions.

The Avigilon Control Center Enterprise Network Video Management Software has been integrated with the Software House C-CURE 9000 security and event management system.

Barix audio over IP devices and contact closure interfaces are qualified for integration into Singlewire InformaCast solutions for professional security applications.

CNL Software and Wavestore have formed a technology partnership to allow both companies’ customers to easily adopt technology from either manufacturer.

Codebench PIVCheck software will integrate with Quintron’s access control management software to provide an HSPD-12-compliant access control solution.

EasyLobby and INEX/ZAMIR Technologies have integrated their products to allow users to identify, monitor, and manage vehicles as well as visitors at any facility.

Environics Oy and Institut fuer Umwelttechnologien GmbH(IUT) have formed a joint venture. Environics-IUT GmbH, will operate from IUT offices in Berlin and acquire the assets of IUT’s detector business.

Cinemark USA, Inc., has selected Envysion as its managed video surveillance provider.

The Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, Arizona, has installed Genetec’s IP video surveillance system, which is managing Axis Communications and Interlogix IP cameras.

GVI Security will represent advanced video surveillance solutions from LG Electronics in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

China’s Shanghai World-Expo Culture Center is using Infinova cameras, modems, and matrix switchers to provide security for the multiple facilities that comprise the complex.

The University of Miami in Florida has installed IQinVision megapixel cameras throughout its main campus.

KapLogic Corporation has partnered with Mate Intelligent Video to create a video solution that offers video analytics.

Milestone Systems’ IP video management software is being used by Coastalwatch, a company that delivers live and recorded video and information on beaches and coastlines around the globe.

Morse Watchmans has provided its KeyWatch system to the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio for key control.

Paxton Access has added All Around Distributors of Brooklyn, New York, to its list of U.S. distributors.

Pixim, Inc., reported that deView electronics has introduced eight new cameras that integrate Pixim’s newest chip, Seawolf.

Plustek has provided video server and networked video recorder solutions to ABC Jewelers in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.

Tri-Ed/Northern Video Distribution will distribute personal emergency response systems from LogicMark under a new agreement.

VingCard Elsafe recently installed its Signature RFID by VingCard contactless electronic locks at the Kyriad Marseille Centre-Rabatau in Marseille, France.

GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS

Brivo Systems LLC has implemented Web-based access control for five federal facilities managed by the General Services Administration in the Midwest. ADT is the integrator for the ongoing project.

DK Security will provide security services for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Detroit District.

Johnson Controls Building Automation Systems, LLC, will provide building and security systems to the Army Engineering and Support Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Idesco was chosen by the Kuopio Prison in Finland to supply access control readers for the renovation of the prison building. Niscayah Oy is the installer.

Turkey’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism is implementing INKSURE Technologies’ machine-readable taggant solution for security on the country’s museum and historical site entrance tickets.

LaserCard Corporation has received an order for optical security media cards to be issued under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Permanent Resident Card program.

NICE Systems Ltd. will expand implementation of its video surveillance solution and incident information management solution at Dallas/ Fort Worth International Airport.

Denver International Airport has selected the Aerobahn management system from Sensis Corporation to
enhance efficiency and security at the airport.

Siemens Industry Inc. has installed its new apron baggage screening solution at Los Angeles International Airport for Delta Air Lines.

AWARDS AND CERTIFICATIONS

Visitors to the exhibit hall at ISC West last April saw plenty of great ideas realized. The 85 entries in the 2011 Security Industry Association New Product Showcase offered innovation and intelligence for security applications. Winner of the Best New Product Award, SafeRise from

FST21 Americas is an access control product that uses biometrics—voice, face, and behavioral analytics—along with video to recognize individuals, so they need no key, card, or code for access to a building.

The Judges’ Choice Award was given to the OSID from Xtralis. The device provides smoke detection for large, open spaces by using dual light frequencies to discriminate between smoke and other objects, reducing false alarms.

Awards were presented in 21 product and service categories from access control to wireless solutions.

Accurate Background has proven compliance with the Background Screening Agency Accreditation Program from the National Association of Professional Background Screeners.

AtHoc, Inc., announced that its IWSAlerts Software-as-a-Service offering is accredited to be compliant with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) SP 800-53 Rev3 controls for government information technology security.

BriefCam has been named Milestone Systems’ Solution Partner of the Year.

Fire-Lite Alarms by Honeywell has achieved International Building Code seismic certification for its most popular fire alarm systems.

HID Global announced that its multiCLASSMagnetic Stripe non-keypad readers are FIPS 201-certified and available on the U.S. General Services Administration list of approved products.

The Vindicator platform and related products from Honeywell have been recognized by the Department of Defense Information Assurance Certification and Accreditation Process as compliant.

IntraCom Systems, LLC, announced that it is in compliance with the European Broadcasting Union Tech 3347 Standard.

Security services from Mulligan Security have been designated as Qualified Anti-Terrorism Technology under the SAFETY Act by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Origin Storage announced that its DataLocker Enterprise v2.0 encrypted portable hard drive has received FIPS 140-2 validation by NIST.

Reclamere was awarded the Hard Drive Sanitization Certification by the National Association for Information Destruction Inc.

Silver Tail Systems, Inc., is the winner of the Emerging Technology Award from the Merchant Risk Council.

Smartvue announced that its new S9 HD wireless network video surveillance solution won the 2011 Mobility Award in the mobile video security category from Mobile-Trax.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

The American Red Cross has launched a new generation of health and safety training, including two-year certification for first aid and CPR training and free digital refresher courses.

Axis Security in the United Kingdom has launched a leasing program that allows customers to implement security systems without paying the full cost up front. The program includes an initial site survey and technical assessment.

Contemporary Services Corporation has opened a new branch office in Reno, Nevada.

ISACA is offering a new audit program on social media to help address governance, training, and monitoring.

Minieri Associates has introduced a training course for members of the American Institute of Architects. “Physical Security Concepts for Design Professionals” qualifies for eight learning units.

OnSSI has introduced a new financial services program, allowing customers to finance surveillance and security projects through the company.

Plant Equipment Inc., doing business as PlantCML, has changed its name to Cassidian Communications, Inc.

Secura Key has expanded its product training program with a new course on the RK65K standalone access control system.

Securitas has acquired Seguricorp, a security services company in Chile.

In a demonstration at the NAVDEX defense exhibition in Abu Dhabi, Sonardyne demonstrated its Sentinel diver detection sonar by identifying navy divers twice daily.

Stanley Convergent Security Solutions has purchased three United Kingdom security companies: Smiths Security Services Ltd., Raysil Security Systems Ltd., and SRP Security Systems Ltd.

The Advisory Council (TAC) has added a new consulting service, Vendor and Technology Assessment.

The U.S. office of Optelecom-NKF will be renamed TKH Security Solutions USA, and the European, Middle East, and African offices will be renamed Siqura, following the merger with TKH Group. Corporate headquarters is in Gouda, the Netherlands.

UTC Fire & Security has pledged $150,000 to the Fire Protection Engineering Laboratory at Worcester Polytechnic University in Worcester, Massachusetts.

ASIS NEWS

CSO Conference Offers Multiple Perspectives on Security
A federal judge declares that law enforcement can access information stored on the cloud. A CEO of a global news agency says that security concerns trump the news-reporting function. A noted cyberwar expert states that cyberwar risk is grossly exaggerated. And the CTO of a large software company warns CSOs to stop announcing that the sky is falling at every sign of risk.

These were just a few of the multiple, and often widely divergent, views of security heard at the ASIS International CSO Roundtable 4th Annual Spring Conference, held in mid-March at the Westin Alexandria in Alexandria, Virginia. During the day-and-a-half program, presenters challenged attendees to understand their businesses, think creatively, display leadership skills, and use precious time before the board to concisely convey key concerns.

With the ongoing disaster in Japan as a backdrop—the earthquake and tsunami struck a few days before the conference, and the fate of nuclear power plants was a growing concern—the conference added last-minute sessions on evacuations and on how attendees were dealing with the chaos in Japan. Members also completed an on-the-spot survey on those same topics, which showed that the vast majority of businesses had not, at that point, evacuated personnel from the area.

After a welcome and introduction from ASIS President Raymond T. O’Hara, CPP, and CSO Roundtable Advisory Board Cochair Kevin Donovan, the conference was kicked off by Alex Kozinski, a Reagan-appointee to the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In a key note that displayed the jurist’s keen intellect, affinity for pop culture, and knack for bon mots, Kozinski warned that today’s technologies—for example, iPhones, Twitter, and Facebook—offer fewer privacy protections because users expect less privacy.

That lack of expectation stands in stark contrast to traditional attitudes about the privacy of telephone conversations. Because of a sense of privacy concerning phone conversations that developed over decades, the public would be alarmed if the government and business routinely listened in on their phone calls and then used that information for marketing or monitoring purposes. Yet we freely let Gmail “read” our e-mails for marketing purposes and, as in the case of a Bulgarian lawmaker who was supposed to be in a legislative session at the time, let Facebook tell the world that we are playing Farmville.

Kozinski said the permanency of the Internet is also eroding privacy, pointing out that Google pulled up his phone number, which he took every precaution to hide, from a comment someone posted on a tax policy blog that had been dormant since 2003. “With Web 2.0,” he said, “any fool with a computer and Internet connection can post something online forever.” Such was the case for Miss Teen South Carolina, whose incoherent answer to a question about students’ geography skills was immortalized on the Web, when in previous years it would have been forgotten immediately.

He also worried about data privacy on the cloud. If companies store data in the cloud on a server near another organization’s data that is of interest to law enforcement, Kozinski warned, the government may be able to peek at the data. And many federal jurisdictions (excluding the Ninth Circuit) leave it up to the law enforcement agent’s discretion how much he or she can view.

Also focusing on data security was famed cryptographer and technologist Bruce Schneier, who called the hype surrounding cyberwarfare “extraordinarily exaggerated.” He ran through a timeline of cyberwar-like attacks—from the United States using malware to cause an explosion in the TransSiberian Pipeline in 1982 to the use of Stuxnet to take down the Iranian Bushehr nuclear reactor last year—to argue that cyberwar is more a figurative war (like the war on drugs) than an actual war. In many of the cases he cited, it was unclear who was perpetrating the attack—state actors, extremists, hackers, kids, or spies.

While cyberwar is exaggerated, “We are at the start of a cyberwar arms race,” Schneier declared, and the United States needs to be prepared, especially since the country is so heavily reliant on its cyber infrastructure. This makes a “cybercommand” as important as the physical military branches. He also urged the creation of cyberwar treaties to establish ground rules, such as minimizing collateral damage, banning attacks on civilian infrastructure, and requiring that attack tools self-destruct at the end of warfare.

In contrast with high-tech discussions by Kozinski and Schneier, Associated Press CEO Tom Curley spoke literally about boots on the ground. He explained that the AP had gone without a security department since its inception more than 160 years ago. Reporters prided themselves on “running helter-skelter to wherever the bombs fell,” Curley said, resulting in many near misses. Curley then explained how he brought in a CSO, Danny Spriggs, who would report directly to him. “I felt security was so vital that it had to report to the CEO,” Curley said, which set the tone from the top. That approach also prevents security from being second-guessed. Spriggs added that the new normal after 9-11 has made security a key business player, especially in an organization that makes its money by sending personnel to dangerous places.

The extent to which security is honored at AP took some as a surprise. For example, Curley mentioned that AP had pulled its staff out of Libya because it seemed to be falling into civil war. Asked whether he didn’t feel an obligation to report from this global hotspot, Curley stood by his decision, saying, “No story is worth someone’s life.”

Several sessions reflected the CSO Roundtable’s partnership initiatives with likeminded organizations. Members of Business Executives for National Security (BENS) presented sessions on “CXO Perspectives on Security” and “Lessons Learned from Organized Crime.” Representing RIMS, Rick Roberts of Ensign- Bickford Industries spoke on “Security from the Financial Risk Perspective.” Other session highlights included U.S. Army Lieutenant General Guy Swan’s inside look at Mexican drug cartels, CEO and Founder of Global Cyber Risk Jody R. Westby, Esq.’s exposé on the lack of executive oversight of digital assets and privacy issues, and a discussion of personnel evacuations conducted by iJet’s Bruce McIndoe, as well as Alex Puig and Mark Wachter of Travel Security Services.

The CSO Roundtable also gave a presentation on how to become a CSO at the New York Chapter Seminar on May 12. The Roundtable will also present a one-day program on Mexico in conjunction with the Mexico City Chapter in that city on July 6, and a panel on critical infrastructure protection at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado later this month.