Year: 2023

Night-time video security is important in our industry. Getting a good security camera with good low light capabilities, then, is crucial. This buyers’ guide discusses some of the key points to consider when selecting a low light camera. More and more, low light cameras are gaining traction in the security industry. And most users agree with this notion. According to asmag.com and Hikvision’s survey*, when asked about demand for low light security cameras this year compared to last year, a vast majority – 73 percent – said demand grew, while 22 percent said it was similar to last year and 5 percent said it was declining. So, what’s contributing to this increase in demand? The need for better and more effective night-time video security is a major driver. Technology advances and affordability, meanwhile, are also key Security cameras are widely used to provide clear evidence for security threats and emergencies. Most of the security threats and emergencies happen at night when target details are hardly seen. Therefore, low light cameras that provide good image performance with rich colorful details in dark environment are the ideal choices for CCTV users. As technology develops, the performance of low light cameras has improved. Meanwhile, low-light cameras will be affordable for more and more users. We shall witness the continuous growth of low light camera market. 6 key considerations when choosing low-light cameras That said, how should the user choose a low-light camera that fits their needs and requirements? We take a look at the following points of consideration Selecting the type of camera The selection begins with the type of low-light camera the user wants to get. Currently, there are mainly three types of low-light camera – IR camera, which switches to black-and-white mode at night; low-light camera, which captures color 24/7; and regular security camera with supplemental lighting. Each has its benefits and can be applied in different applications. As IR light is unnoticeable at night, IR cameras can be applied in scenes when security cameras need to be covert, such as cinemas and office buildings. Lowlight cameras that capture color throughout can provide 24/7 colorful imaging with more useful information and can be widely used in all scenes when white supplemental light is acceptable. For some places with environmental light, low-light cameras can work with (supplemental) light off. A regular security camera with supplemental light is often used in special industries and projects, such as road traffic monitoring. Supplementary lighting considerations The user should also consider the type of supplemental lighting that they want to use. Should it be white light, IR light or hybrid? Again, this depends on the user’s own case. White light can be deployed on streets, yards and other outdoor open areas where users don’t find the light annoying. IR light, on the other hand, is unnoticeable and can be applied in virtually all scenarios; the downside, of course, is it delivers black and white images, and important color details may be lost. Hybrid supplemental light, which combines the benefits of both IR and white light, can then be a viable option. When the light is required to be covert, hybrid supplemental light can be set as IR mode. When color imaging is required, the light can be set as white light mode. Moreover, when the hybrid light is combined with intelligent functions, it can work in an intelligent mode. When human or vehicle targets appear, white light is turned on to provide color information and to deter intruders. When there’s no human or vehicle target, the hybrid light works in IR mode to be unnoticeable. Know the lux rating What does lux ratings mean in CCTV? The lux rating of a security camera refers to the level of illumination by which the camera can produce a good image. For your quick reference, illuminance under direct sunlight measures up to 100,000 lux; whereas, office lighting might be around 500 lux and a moonless, cloudy night 0.0001 lux. Basically, the less light, the lower the lux number. With that, let’s talk about how the lux rating would affect your need to install additional lighting. A low-light camera with 0.001 lux or lower lux rating can provide bright enough imaging capability without built-in supplemental light in a conventional city environment with environmental light. With a lower lux rating value, the low-light camera relies less on the supplemental light with bright enough night imaging. The light is needed for darker environments and the camera is able to provide brighter imaging with the same level of supplemental light. Sensor size or megapixel When it comes to image sensors for the best lowlight security cameras, size matters. Many people would think that higher megapixels directly equate to better image quality, but a lot of different factors come into play. Therefore, with the resolution being equal, the sensor that’s larger in size works better as the larger size sensor can gather more light and generate a brighter image. For example – for 2MP sensors, 1/2.8” sensor is better than 1/3”; for 4MP sensors, 1/1.8” is better than 1/2.8”; and for 8MP sensors, 1/1.2” is better than 1/1.8”. Choosing right form factor When choosing a low-light camera, what form factor should the user get – bullet, dome or PTZ? It depends on the monitoring distance and environments. For 60-meter-and-above long-distance monitoring, PTZ is recommended. For standard distance monitoring that is within 60 meters, dome/ turret forms are recommended for indoors and bullet form is recommended for outdoors. Analytics needed The use of video analytics in low-light cameras have been gaining popularity in the past few years, enabling features like object and motion detection and real-time alerts. Human and vehicle classification is very practical on low light cameras. With analytics, users can detect and retrieve clear human and vehicle targets at night. However, the smartest algorithms still rely on pixel values for image recognition and analysis, with small variances in values providing the contrast needed for an analytics engine to define images with a…

Navneet Daga, Sales Director – Cloud Security Services, Radware The closest imitation of humans and their tasks is done currently by a software application – Bots. They are mostly being used to give human-like experiences in customer services and other interactive vectors like – chatbots, shopbots, knowbots, spiders or crawlers, monitoring bots etc. For this reason, tech experts call this ‘the age of bots.’ The best example of this disruptive tech tool is ChatGPT, a chatbot. Businesses need to understand that this is the right time for them to invest in bot management solutions because these are times when bots are overpowering businesses. What is bot management and how unique is Radware bot management? Bot management refers to blocking undesired or malicious internet bot traffic while still allowing useful bots to access web properties. Bot management accomplishes this by detecting bot activity and it is necessary because their traffic causes websites to slow down. Malicious bots can erase or download content from a website, steal user credentials, rapidly spread spam content and lead to other cyberattacks. Radware Bot Manager provides specialized enterprise-grade defence against sophisticated bots that carry out malicious attacks. It offers an array of mitigation options on the market including a unique Crypto Challenge that enables legit users to browse CATPCHA-free. It is understood that bot management is needed to help manage bot traffic – good and bad. But what is a good bot and what is a bad bot? More such questions need to be answered to get a deeper insight into why bot management is a necessary and important inclusion. The good, the bad and the unknown side of bots By definition, good bots are internet bots that don’t cause any harm or provide benefits and value to their owner or users. On the other hand, bad bots are internet bots made with malicious intent behind them. Bad bots can create fake social media accounts to spam users and businesses with negative or inappropriate comments and even spread fake news. A website trying to block or mitigate bot traffic must do so without stopping any of the good bots, which perform a range of useful functions. Here’s a list of bots to help organizations understand what types of bots exist and give organizations an understanding of why bot management is necessary: Types of good bots Monitoring Bots: Monitors the uptime and system health of the websites. Backlink Checker Bots: Checks the inbound URLs a website is getting so that marketers and SEO specialists can derive insights and optimize their site accordingly. Social Network Bots: Bots that are run by social networking websites giving visibility to websites and driving engagements on their platforms. Partner Bots: Useful to websites and carry out tasks, transactions and provide essential business services. Aggregator/ Feed Fetcher Bots: Collate information from websites and keeps users or subscribers updated on news, events or blog posts. Search Engine Crawler Bots: These bots or spiders crawl and index web pages to make them available on search engines. Types of bad bots Scraper Bots: These bots are programmed to steal content such as prices and product information so that they can undermine the pricing strategies of the target website. Spam Bots: They primarily target community portals, blog comment sections and lead collection forms. They interfere with user conversations, troll users, and insert unwanted advertisements, links and banners. Scalper Bots: These bots target ticketing websites to purchase hundreds of tickets as soon as bookings open and sell them to reseller websites at many times the original cost of the ticket. Account Takeover: Account takeovers include credential stuffing, password spraying, and brute force attacks that are used to gain unauthorized access to a targeted account. Credential stuffing and password spraying are two popular techniques used today. Once hackers gain access to an account, they can begin additional stages of infection, data exfiltration or fraud. Scraping: Scraping is the process of extracting data or information from a website and publishing it elsewhere. Content price and inventory scraping is also used to gain a competitive advantage. These scrape bots crawl your web pages for specific information about your products. Typically, scrapers steal the entire content from websites or mobile applications and publish it to gain traffic. Inventory Exhaustion: Inventory exhaustion is when a bot is used to add hundreds of items to a cart and later, abandon them to prevent real shoppers from buying the products. Inventory Scalping: Hackers deploy retail bots to gain an advantage to buy goods and tickets during a flash sale, and then resell them later at a much higher price. Carding: Carders deploy bots on checkout pages to validate stolen-card details, and to crack gift cards. Skewed Analytics: Automated invalid traffic directed at your e-commerce portal can skews metrics and misleads decision-making when applied to advertisement budgets and other business decisions. Bots pollute metrics, disrupt funnel analysis, and inhibit KPI tracking. Application DoS: Application DoS attacks slow down e-commerce portals by exhausting web servers resources, 3rd party APIs, inventory databases and other critical resources to the point that they are unavailable for legitimate users. Ad Fraud: Bad bots are used to generate Invalid traffic designed to create false impressions and generate illegitimate clicks on websites and mobile apps. Account Creation: Bots are used to create fake accounts on a massive scale for content spamming, SEO and skewing analytics. If a malicious bot targets an online business, it will be impacted in one way or another when it comes to website performance, sales conversions, competitive advantages, analytics or user experience. The good news is organizations can take action against bot activity in real time, but first, they need to understand their own risk before considering a solution. E-Commerce: The e-commerce industry faces bot attacks that include account takeovers, scraping, inventory exhaustion, scalping, carding, skewed analytics, application DoS, Ad fraud, and account creation. Media: Digital publishers are vulnerable to automated attacks such as Ad fraud, scraping, skewed analytics, and form spam. Travel: The travel industries mainly deal…