Day: January 23, 2022

Vikas Bhonsle, CEO, Crayon Software Experts India Since 2020, inconsistencies have become a new norm for businesses globally. Even though the industry is preparing to open up again in full swing and get back to some level of normalcy, it is still unclear if the pandemic conditions are going away any time soon. On the brighter side, businesses have become well versed with pandemic implied difficulties and survival mechanisms for future scenarios. The business models of the past are becoming obsolete for the future. The specific strategies below can help companies to prepare for the better or worse: Multi-cloud adoption In 2020, many companies had to close down their onsite operations and make a swift move to the cloud. However, instead of choosing one cloud provider, it is advisable to diversify the cloud adoption and go for a Multicloud approach. Apart from the regular benefits, like innovation, expansion, and cost-savings, Multicloud mitigates the drawback of ‘Vendor Lock-in’ – the perennial IT problem of being so dependent on a vendor that the costs of moving elsewhere are restricted. With Multicloud, companies can cherry-pick the services and applications that are best suited to their business. It also gives the customer a fair chance to better negotiate when it comes to costs and contracts. Also, in a Multicloud environment, if one vendor suffers an outage, it is reassuring to know about the other options for business recovery and continuity. Re-skilling and up-skilling of Employees The pandemic has brought massive changes to the economic landscape, which requires companies to adopt new approaches for mobilizing their existing talent base. All business models and operations are being reimagined and reinvented. Hence, to build a resilient workforce, existing employees must be trained to adapt to the changes. It will not just help employees become better skilled and stay relevant in their jobs, but it will also create a sense of balance in the talent demand and supply gap. Bring Agility and Purpose to Your Company The pandemic forced many organizations to accelerate processes and be more agile. Now the goal is to maintain the same pace by nurturing it from inside the organization. This will happen by investing in new collaboration technologies. With everyone going pro-digital, there will be a natural demand for the speedy delivery in communication and services. Also, to retain employees for long, companies must bring a sense of purpose to the business. A McKinsey report states that companies with a strong sense of purpose outperform those that lack one. The overall purpose also helps companies recognize emerging opportunities and connect with their customers. This, too, should therefore be seen as a priority and a source of competitive advantage. Use of Data-centric technologies to manage operations in a better way Data is the direct output of digital solutions. Incorporating data analysis and creating new models to enable real-time decision making is the way to go ahead in the future. After the 2008 financial crisis, many risk and financial models had to be rebuilt. Similarly, in the post-COVID-19 era, the use of data and analytics will need to be recalibrated. New data models must be enhanced and validated to enable companies to address demand forecasting, asset management, and coping with massive new volumes of data. The Great Reset Digital transformation is not just critical, but the natural progression for businesses to navigate future times. The above mentioned strategic directions, among many others, will help companies to sustain and support their customers and stakeholders in a better way during these unprecedented times.  

Nikhil Korgaonkar, Regional Director, Arcserve India & SAARC Sophistication in cyberattacks is increasing by the day, with only 1 in 5 enterprises being confident that they could recover from a ransomware attack. In a recent survey conducted by Dimensional Research, 96% of IT decision-makers reported they are worried about ransomware attacks. CISOs are stepping up the protection of their business with prevention solutions, such as firewalls, identity, and access management and passwords. However, there is still one challenge at large – data storage. Understanding the Importance of Immutable Storage When a company falls victim to a cyberattack, every second of business downtime is painful and expensive and can result in a loss of $5,600 per minute, according to Gartner. Cyberattack prevention measures are essential for security. The total cost of recovery from a ransomware attack has more than doubled in a year, increasing from $761,106 in 2020 to $1.85 million in 2021 globally, as per the Sophos report. However, CISOs also need data protection to achieve their primary objective of data security and availability. Achieving this well depends on data backup and storage. Indian companies pay around $76,619 as ransom on average. However, despite paying up the ransom, on average, organisations could retrieve only 75 per cent of their data in India, compared to a global average of 65 percent, and only 4 per cent got all their data back. Solutions such as firewalls, identity, access management and passwords etc., underpin all business operations and are prime targets for hackers during cyberattacks. These solutions should, therefore, also be the top priority when it comes to preparing data security policies. Backup and immutable storage solutions protect data in case of an attack or any other business disaster. They are the last line of defence that guarantees data security and availability. Establishing data immutability for optimal security Implementing a holistic approach to data security by integrating an immutable data storage solution is crucial as it strengthens data resilience. A business can never stop cyberattacks, but neutralizing their effects can ensure business continuity, which is critical. The most important step for a company that wants to protect itself against ransomware is to back up files regularly and store them using an immutable storage solution. The most sophisticated attacks make it possible to encrypt both the files and the recovery points. An immutable snapshot is a copy of your data that ransomware or a user cannot modify or delete. An organization can quickly recover data written to an immutable data storage solution following data corruption or deletion, ransomware attacks, or other issues. Indeed, users can independently recover their data by looking through their files on Windows Explorer or Finder on a Mac. There’s no need to recover data using the previous day’s backup – users look through the files and select the data they want to restore. As well as making their teams aware of security risks, CISOs must also increase their awareness of the importance of data storage. Data security policies are often limited to the basics and are not robust enough in today’s world, where the number of attacks is rising. Data is a huge money-maker for hackers, so businesses should be asking, not if, but when they will become ransomware victims. Now is the time to change your information security strategy and incorporate a holistic approach to data protection.  

Everyone knows that high definition (HD) is amazing, dramatically improving viewing quality and experience. For security, that’s super important. For example, HD images can significantly assist in event investigations, particularly in terms of reviewing incidents and verifying claims. On the other hand, if video of license plates or other key evidence is grainy and blurry, it can make cases time-consuming, difficult, and expensive to solve. Likewise, for business owners that are looking for peace of mind, high-definition footage supports faster, more effective incident responses. But HD deployments don’t always give the benefits customers expect, especially if it’s a retrofit, meaning that cameras are being upgraded at the front end. In fact, getting an upgrade right requires an in-depth review of your end-to-end security infrastructure to ensure that HD cameras can be supported effectively. For example, many networks can only handle three to four Mbps (megabits per second), while HD cameras typically require 5-8Mbps to stream videos. In such a case, the performance of HD cameras would be negatively impacted, and investments wasted. Here are our three tips for ensuring that your end-to-end security infrastructure can support new HD cameras, and deliver all the benefits your organization expects: Select a high-definition camera that suits your needs Some HD cameras are designed to give visibility across large areas, while some focus on small spaces; and some can zoom in on a person or vehicle of interest while others can’t. That’s why you need to choose cameras that are right for your specific needs, whether you’re looking to monitor a large parking lot, or the front yard of a family house. You can ensure you choose the right HD camera by clarifying the use case you’re with your local security installer. They can help you choose the right kit and the right lens and image resolution options based on whether you need to detect, observe, recognize, or identify an object and on how far, and how clearly your cameras need to ‘see.’ When it comes to analog… I t is obvious that network cameras or IP cameras have gained a lot of popularity in the market as they are flexible to deploy, expandable, and can incorporate a number of intelligent functions based on algorithms. However, this doesn’t mean that customers with existing analog system can’t upgrade their systems to HD. On the contrary, they can deploy HD capabilities without replacing the whole infrastructure. This is made possible with the High Definition Transport Video Interface (HDTVI) standard, which is available with Turbo HD products from Hikvision. With Turbo HD, HD-over-coaxial solutions allow customers to achieve superior picture quality in the analog world. Choose technologies that maximize storage efficiency and lower costs Compared to conventional CCTV, the transmission of HD images consumes more network bandwidth and storage space. This means limiting the bitrate from HD video streams is critical. Advanced video encoding technology like the Hikvision H.265+ can solve this problem, greatly reducing the bitrate of recorded footage, as well as bandwidth and storage costs. According to a 24-hour testing in a busy café restaurant, with cameras at the same resolution and frame rate, we found that the H.264 codec yielded an average of 22.7 GB. Strikingly, Hikvision’s H.265+ averaged only 3.9 GB, demonstrating an 83% improvement in storage consumption. It’s also possible to maximize transmission and storage efficiency with the right video recording plan. In some cases, for example, when it’s important to capture specific events in a video timeline, customers can implement a video recording plan only when the pre-defined event rules are triggered. In other cases, full-time video recordings is necessary, which requires a continuous recording plan. Alternatively, a mixed recording plan can be used, for example, for continuous video recording on weekdays and event recording on weekends, or for any other configuration of times and days. Make sure your monitor delivers the right HD viewing experience It would be a shame if you have had good quality HD security cameras and network environment, but the video images on the monitor are in low resolution. In other words, if you deployed an HD camera at 2MP, and your monitor supports up to 720P, ultimately you would get video images with 720P resolution, instead of 1080P your camera is able to provide. So, to get the most out of the HD cameras and infrastructure you have, you need a monitor that is at least 1080 pixels. Preferably, it should also be equipped with proper image rendering and processing technologies to deliver true-to-life HD images. Only this way will you get the crystal-clear images that the leading HD cameras can provide. Basically, the more pixels per inch (PPI), the higher the resolution is. Therefore, with the same 1080P resolution, monitors in a 22-inch format will provide sharper images than monitors in a 24-inch format. So, if customers need monitors for small business use, for instance, a café restaurant, a monitor with smaller size would do the job well. For larger scenarios like industrial parks and stadiums, big-sized video walls with 4K resolution are ideal. Implement your HD retrofit plan with Hikvision From high-quality image capturing, to efficient HD image transmission and storage, HD image display and viewing, Hikvision has thought about all of these key steps and designed our solutions to optimize your HD deployment. As an IoT solution provider with video as its core competency, Hikvision provides a wide range of HD cameras featuring various resolutions and top-notch image processing technologies, which dramatically address customers’ needs under different scenarios and budgets. The company’s inhouse H.265+ video encoding technology ensures that HD images can be transmitted and stored in an efficient way without compromising image quality. Its display products including monitors, video walls, and the latest LED products offer unrivalled visual experience to suit every security need, indoor and outdoor.  

Johan Paulsson, CTO, Axis Communications It only feels like five minutes since we published our 2021 technology trends post. The past year has flown by. I hope it’s been a positive one for all of you, and though we’re still experiencing an uncertain environment, you’ve remained healthy and safe. As ever, I tend to start thinking about next year’s technology trends in the context of those which we predicted for this year. However, having published annual technology trends posts for a while now, I looked back through them all to prompt some thoughts. What’s very clear is that the concept of ‘trust’ has appeared in most of the posts in one form or another. The context has changed slightly over the years, sometimes focused on trust in the use of data, trust that systems are secure, or the fundamental need to trust that organizations are doing the right thing. But it’s clear that matching the ongoing pace of technology innovation through an equal evolution in building trust in the use of technology is vital. We don’t think that 2022 will be any different. Now more than ever there’s a healthy desire – from individuals, organizations, and legislators – to ensure that new technologies are being developed, manufactured, used and secured in ways that we can trust are positive. For Axis, of course, that means always working towards our vision of a smarter, safer world. As we move into 2022, it’s interesting to see how many of the technology trends we see for year can be linked back to the need to build a trusted technology ecosystem. Universally connected across hybrid environments To the end user of technology – from a consumer using their mobile phone to security personnel managing video surveillance – the technology architecture being used to deliver services has become invisible. Whether processing takes place on a device, local server or in a remote data center doesn’t matter – everything is simply ‘connected’. Last year we talked about the world going ‘horizontal,’ where the combination of cloud, on-premise server and edge technologies would be increasingly used together, each employed to its strengths, in so-called hybrid solutions. This hasn’t changed, but it’s very apparent that the question of architecture is unique to each customer and needs to take account of both internal resources and policies, and of external factors such as local and international regulation. As a security solution vendor, it’s not up to us to define for the customer the environments and architecture they should use, but rather to equip them with the tools and flexibility to decide on the best solution for their unique situation. Given that ‘connected’ has become the default, we do believe that most surveillance solutions will ultimately be hybrid – indeed, many already are – which in itself has implications. Cybersecurity born from a healthy skepticism We don’t always think of skepticism as a positive trait, but in relation to cybersecurity it can be a prudent one. The billions of connections that now exist between devices, networks, and data centers have made the concept of securing a perimeter around any organization almost completely obsolete. The walls that might have previously existed have become permeable, and a new approach to security has therefore emerged – zero trust networks. Regular readers of our annual technology trends post may question the move to zero trust networks as a trend for 2022, given it was mentioned in last year’s post. But while a year ago we foresaw the rapid acceleration towards zero trust network architectures, we now believe it to be a default approach. The COVID-19 pandemic has played a role here too, as much more flexible work has seen more devices previously used within the organization’s walls connected remotely over the public internet. When zero trust networks means that the security profile for each device and application connecting to a network is independently evaluated each time it connects, it has significant implications for the video surveillance sector. Signed firmware, regular software updates, secure boot, encrypted data/ video and secure identity will become hygiene factors in customer solutions, moving from ‘nice to have’ to ‘must have.’ Authenticate everything While taking a zero-trust approach to cybersecurity is focused on authenticate the credentials of connected devices and applications, the ability to establish the authenticity of video surveillance itself is fundamental to trust in its value. Tampering with video after it is captured, along with the increased sophistication in creating manipulated images, means that we may see the authenticity of video surveillance footage being more regularly questioned. It is therefore going to be imperative that video surveillance can be undeniably established as genuine. Our approach is to add a digital signature into the video stream at the point of capture – a hash in each video frame – supplying proof that the video was produced inside a specific camera and that it hasn’t been tampered with since. But this is an issue for the security industry as a whole. It is therefore imperative that the industry aligns behind initiatives to standardize on approaches to secure the authenticity of video footage captured by video surveillance cameras, ideally based on open-source software and initiatives. AI becomes established and accepted (with appropriate controls) It seems impossible to write a technology trends post without mention of artificial intelligence (AI). Many would also argue that AI is no longer a trend, and that the AI ‘genie’ is well and truly out of the bottle. Indeed, we’re all using and being exposed to valuable AI and deep learning-based services on a daily basis. Our view remains that technology in itself shouldn’t be regulated, but that use cases of new technology should be. Legislation and regulation relating to the development and use of AI-based technologies and applications should be developed at a local, regional and international level. And it goes without saying that it should be adhered to by every organization employing AI. While we’re still positive about the potential for AI and deep learning in…