Category: International

A joint worldwide customs and police operation has resulted in the seizure of large quantities of protected flora and fauna across every continent. Recently, INTERPOL and the World Customs Organization (WCO) coordinated Operation Thunderball, with police and customs administrations leading joint enforcement operations against wildlife and timber crime across 109 countries. The intelligence led operation identified trafficking routes and crime hotspots ahead of time, enabling border, police and environmental officers to seize protected wildlife products ranging from live big cats and primates to timber, marine wildlife and derived merchandise such as clothing, beauty products, food items, traditional medicines and handicrafts. A team of customs and police officers together coordinated global enforcement activities from an Operations Coordination Centre at INTERPOL’s Global Complex for Innovation in Singapore. Worldwide environmental impact Initial results have led to the identification of almost 600 suspects, triggering arrests worldwide. Further arrests and prosecutions are anticipated as ongoing global investigations progress. Global seizures reported to date include: 23 live primates, 30 big cats and large quantities of animal parts, 440 pieces of elephant tusks and an additional 545 Kg of ivory, More than 4,300 birds, Just under 1,500 live reptiles and nearly 10,000 live turtles and tortoises, Almost 7,700 wildlife parts from all species, including more than 30 kg game meat, 2,550 cubic meters of timber (equivalent to 74 truckloads), More than 2,600 plants, Almost 10,000 marine wildlife items, such as coral, seahorses, dolphins and sharks. The operation saw half a tonne of pangolin parts bound for Asia seized in Nigeria, and the arrest of three suspects in Uruguay attempting to smuggle more than 400 protected wildlife species. The operation highlighted the continuing trend for online wildlife trade, with 21 arrests in Spain and the seizure in Italy of 1,850 birds resulting from two online investigations. “Wildlife crime not only strips our environment of its resources, it also has an impact through the associated violence, money laundering and fraud,” said INTERPOL Secretary General Jürgen Stock, “Operations like Thunderball are concrete actions targeting the transnational crime networks profiting from these illicit activities. We will continue our efforts with our partners to ensure that there are consequences for criminals who steal from our environment.” Police-customs cooperation: A sustainable approach against organised wildlife crime “As clearly illustrated by the results of Operation Thunderball, close cooperation at international and national levels to combat wildlife crime must never be under-estimated,” said WCO Secretary General Kunio Mikuriya. INTERPOL and the WCO have a long history of cooperation, regularly supporting each other’s operations in the field. Operation Thunderball marks a new direction in their partnership, bringing them together as joint operational partners on the frontline to ensure wildlife trafficking is addressed comprehensively, from detection to arrest, investigation and prosecution. “Such initiatives will be replicated to raise awareness within the global law enforcement community on the gravity of global wildlife crime and to better coordinate cross-agency efforts, including the engagement of civil society groups to detect and deter wildlife criminal networks,” added Dr Mikuriya. Slight declines in the seizures of certain species are a sign that continued enforcement efforts are bearing fruit, and that compliance levels are improving. “For the sake of our future generations and the world we live in, it is vital that we stop criminals from putting livelihoods, security, economies and the sustainability of our planet at risk by illegally exploiting wild flora and fauna,” said Ivonne Higuero, CITES Secretary General. CITES is the convention on international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora, which ensures that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival. “Operation Thunderball sends a clear message – we will continue to work closely with our International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC) partners in support of efforts to implement CITES and address wildlife crime, deploying our collective strength and expertise to ensure that no stone is left unturned and wildlife criminals face the full force of the law,” added Ms Higuero. Throughout Operation Thunderball, customs and police officers, supported by environmental authorities, wildlife and forestry agencies, border agencies and CITES management authorities, worked together to identify and intercept shipments containing flora and other species protected and regulated under the CITES convention. Coordinated jointly by INTERPOL’s environmental security programme and the WCO environment programme, Operation Thunderball is the third in the ‘Thunder’ series, following Thunderbird in 2017 and Thunderstorm in 2018. Operation Thunderball is financially supported by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for International Development and Cooperation as a deliverable of the ICCWC, the US Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, the United States Agency for International Development and the UK Government, Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs.  

As the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development recently began at the United Nations in New York, the global anti-corruption coalition Transparency International called on the UN to annually review Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16 – Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions. SDG 16 is one of six goals being reviewed in depth at the United Nations this week. SDG 16 includes commitments to fight corruption, increase transparency, tackle illicit financial flows and improve access to information. As such, the goal is critical to the entire 2030 Agenda, because corruption undermines progress on all other SDGs. “Whether the focus is ending hunger and poverty, ensuring access to health, education, and clean water for all, or protecting marine environments and combatting climate change, fighting corruption is an essential pre-requisite for advancing the 2030 Agenda,” said Delia Ferreira Rubio, Chair of Transparency International, “When aid is siphoned off by the corrupt, when politicians come under undue influence from vested interests, or when citizens are unable to hold their governments to account over the delivery of essential services, the entire sustainable development programme is set backwards.” The United Nations estimates that corruption, bribery, tax evasion and related illicit financial flows deprive developing countries of around US$1.26 trillion per year. This has recently been reinforced by IMF research showing that corruption reduces global tax revenues by US$1 trillion annually. “Reducing corruption is an important component of the sustainable development agenda, and one that all state parties have an obligation to address,” said Patricia Moreira, Managing Director of Transparency International, “The scale of the challenge and its impact on sustainable development should compel the UN to review SDG 16 every year and set concrete, advanced indicators to measure its progress.”  

According to new research from Thales, almost half (49%) of businesses believe cloud apps make them a target for cyber-attacks. Surveying 1,050 IT decision makers globally, Thales’ 2019 Access Management Index revealed that cloud applications (49%) are listed in the top three reasons an organization might be attacked, just behind unprotected infrastructure such as IoT devices (54%) and web portals (50%). With cloud applications now a crucial part of day-to-day business operations, the majority (97%) of IT leaders believe that cloud access management is necessary to continue their cloud adoption. However, despite four in 10 (38%) organizations appointing a CISO due to concerns over data breaches in the past 12 months, and 79% of IT decision makers stating that CISOs are responsible for selecting the solutions their company has in place, just one in 10 (14%) are given the final decision on cloud access management. In fact, companies are more likely to put their faith in a traditional IT role, CIOs (48%) when dealing with this, suggesting a disconnection between the decision-making and implementation surrounding cloud security. “Thales protects our customers’ business by enabling them to securely access and use cloud applications. The 2019 Thales Access Management Index findings clearly show concerns surrounding cyber-attacks when deploying cloud applications. Trusted access to the cloud is key to our customers’ digital transformation, but without adequate investment in a dedicated CISO office, organizations will lack the leadership required to implement the correct security strategy or solutions to keep them secure in the cloud,” said Tina Stewart, Vice President Market Strategy for Cloud Protection and Licensing Activity at Thales. Breaches bringing changes Positively, the growing awareness of consumer data breaches has led to organizations taking action – almost all (94%) have changed their security policies around access management in the last 12 months. What’s more, the biggest areas of changes have focused around staff training on security and access management (52%), increasing spend on access management (45%), and access management becoming a board priority (44%). Obstacles blocking access management In spite of the updates to security policies, the majority of IT leaders (95%) believe ineffective cloud access management is still a concern for their organization. In fact, their biggest concerns are its impact on security (48%), IT staffs’ time (44%) and on operational overheads and IT costs (43%). Worse, when it comes to implementing access management solutions, they cited costs (40%), human error (39%) and difficulty integrating them (36%) as the biggest obstacles. When it comes to cloud solutions, three-quarters (75%) of organizations already rely on access management to secure their external users’ log-ins to online corporate resources. In particular, two-factor authentication is the most likely (58%) tool to be seen as effective at protecting cloud and web-based apps, followed by smart single sign-on (49%) and biometric authentication (47%). Stewart concluded, “While organizations are getting to grips with access management solutions, IT and business decision makers must ensure they understand the risks to their cloud solutions in order to implement the relevant ones. These solutions must be perimeter-free, compatible with a zero-trust model, and flexible and adaptive in order to make the most of the latest technologies such as smart SSO. Without effective access management tools in place organizations face a higher risk of breaches, a lack of visibility and incur extra costs from poorly optimized cloud.”  

IPS Intelligent Video Analytics is the first company to join the Hikvision Embedded Open Platform (HEOP) program. Through HEOP, IPS will upload its cutting-edge analytics modules to Hikvision 5 series network cameras. The global HEOP program enables third-party providers to develop their own applications and install them directly on Hikvision cameras. This brings a greater variety of intelligent functionality directly to customers, while development partners can benefit from Hikvision’s global reach. Five innovative camera based analytics modules I PS Intelligent Video Analytics has decades of analytics expertise, and has developed a wealth of advanced analytics functionality. Through HEOP, IPS is embedding five analytics modules into Hikvision 5-series network cameras. They are motion detection, sabotage detection, intrusion detection, loitering detection and indoor detection. Motion detection This intelligent video analytics module offers real-time alerts when objects are seen to move within predefined areas. Sabotage detection Sabotage detection alerts users in real-time when attempts are made to tamper with the camera e.g., if the camera is covered, redirected, sprayed or blinded. Intrusion detection Intrusion detection delivers real-time alerts in the event of an intruder entering a secured outdoor area. Loitering detection This module delivers real-time alerts if individuals are loitering in monitored areas. Indoor detection The indoor detection module alerts users in real-time in the event of intruders entering secured indoor areas. More cost-effective, more flexible Embedding these modules into the cameras means there is no need for additional servers, which saves money for Hikvision customers and increases flexibility in solutions architecture design. One module can be operated per installed camera, and the data can be viewed easily on a web browser. Building on state-of-the-art technology The Hikvision 5-series network cameras are already impressive, combining DarkFighter low-light surveillance with high definition recognition for the first time. Improved codec technology also boosts transmission efficiency. The cameras are ideal for any where that needs 24-hour colorful images from streets and shopping malls to office buildings. Jens Berthelsen, Global Partner Alliance Manager at Hikvision said, “We’re excited that IPS has become our very first partner for the HEOP program. We’re looking forward to seeing how their functionality can help our customers extract new value from our Hikvision 5-series network cameras, while helping them to build even more streamlined, cost-effective security solutions.” Alain H. Benoit, Head of Marketing and Sales at IPS said, “The HEOP platform design makes it incredibly easy to integrate our video analytics into the Hikvision cameras. This integration provides customers with an advanced solution when it comes to real-time detection of suspicious objects or events.”  

Interlogix TruProtect™ commercial security solution is a winner in the 2019 Electronic Security Expo (ESX) Innovations Awards. TruProtect combines intrusion monitoring, access control and video surveillance into a robust single platform. Interlogix is part of Carrier, a leading global provider of innovative heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC), refrigeration, fire, security and building automation technologies. The intelligent new platform was named the winner in the commercial automation, control systems & networking; building automation software/ systems category. The TruProtect system’s modular ‘add-as-you-go’ design enables users to cost-effectively add capacity and functionality as required, creating systems ranging from a single standalone intrusion panel to a fully networked security system spanning hundreds of locations. “This ESX award for the TruProtect system validates our efforts to unify multiple security functions into a single interface,” said Marc Tanguay, Commercial Solutions Product Leader, North America, Interlogix, “Our TruProtect commercial security solution enables users to receive actionable information that empowers them to quickly and efficiently respond to events. The system is a great option for business applications such as banking, education, retail, commercial property and much more.” The TruProtect system supports a wide range of Interlogix TruVision® cameras and network video recorders as well as optional third-party solutions for video surveillance, access control, building management and automation, biometrics, HVAC and lighting. The highly scalable solution supports many zone input devices, alarm areas, access users, doors and elevators. ESX Innovation Award winners were announced at the Electronic Security Expo, held during 3-6 June 2019 in Indianapolis. The awards, selected by a panel of industry professionals, recognize outstanding products and services that drive the electronic security and life safety industry forward. The TruProtect system is available from certified Interlogix dealers throughout North America.

Company also retains #1 position in Americas for the 8th consecutive year, ranks #2 in EMEA with fastest rate of growth, and continues rapid growth in Asia According to a recent report published by business intelligence provider IHS Markit, Genetec Inc., a leading technology provider of unified security, public safety, operations, and business intelligence solutions, was named the world’s number one vendor of video management systems (VMS). IHS reported results from 2015-2018 also point to the company sustaining a 24.1% CAGR (compound annual growth rate) for the past 3 years in this category. In the Americas, Genetec remains the leading VMS manufacturer by a wide margin for the eight consecutive years, with an 18.3% share of this $601 million market. Genetec has also taken the number one position in the $1.7 billion market for back-end video surveillance equipment in the Americas. In the rest of the world, Genetec grew its VMS revenue at a fast rate: In EMEA, Genetec revenues grew by 20.5% in 2018, while in APAC (excluding China), Genetec grew its revenues by 22.5%. “As a privately owned, independent manufacturer of IP-based physical security solutions, we reinvest a much higher proportion of our annual top-line revenue into R&D than most,” stated Pierre Racz, President, Genetec, “Our independence and single-mindedness have helped us earn the trust of enterprise and government users. We want to delight the customer. Circumstances have propelled us to be outspoken about privacy and cyber-security.” “These factors, along with good-fortune, strong partnerships and a great team, are some of the factors that explain the appeal of our solutions,” explained Racz, “We will continue to lower the friction with which our customers integrate new sensors and other systems into the decision-making of their operations.” According to IHS Markit (2017 Video Surveillance Market Share Database, 2017 Access Control Intelligence Database, and 2018 ANPR & Detection Sensors Report), Genetec is the only security and public safety solutions developer to hold top 10 global rankings across all physical security industry sectors including video management software (VMS), access control software, and automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) software.  

Cisco has recently announced software innovations designed to make managing and securing networks easier. As today’s businesses increasingly invest in digital technologies, IT teams are struggling under the amplified workload. To alleviate this burden and allow IT to focus on delivering innovation, Cisco is introducing new artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities to allow IT teams to function at machine speed and scale through personalized network insights. As part of its broadened capabilities offering, Cisco is also unveiling innovations to more effectively manage users and applications across the entire enterprise network – from campus networks and wide-area networks, to data centers and the IoT edge. IT teams currently face a daunting challenge. According to 451 Research, nearly two-thirds of organizations report that their IT teams are facing increased workloads; but increased IT headcount is in the cards for only about one-third of companies in the coming year. At the same time, it has never been more imperative for IT to deliver great digital experiences in this hyper-competitive landscape. Bridging the gap between the needs of a business and the resources available requires innovative network automation and analytics tools, powered by data and underpinned by artificial intelligence and machine learning. Cisco, as a leader in networking and security, collects one of the most well-informed, context-rich telemetry data sets in the IT industry. Now, Cisco is leveraging new software capabilities designed to utilize deidentified and aggregated data, which when combined with Cisco’s 35 years of institutional knowledge building the world’s networks, results in more intelligent solutions that allow IT teams to operate more effectively. These new capabilities will grant IT teams: More visibility: No two networks are the same. Environments are always changing. Cisco continuously collects relevant data from local networks and correlates it against the aggregate deidentified data set to create highly individualized network baselines. These baselines constantly learn and adapt as the number of devices, users and applications evolves, and as environments change. Greater insights: Network complexity has grown beyond the human scale of processing. Cisco uses machine learning to correlate the immense amount of data coming from the network against the individualized network baselines to uncover the issues that will have the greatest impact on the network. This improves issue relevancy, alerting IT of the issues that matter most. It also discovers trends and patterns, so IT can pre-emptively identify issues before they become a problem. Guided actions: Cisco uses machine reasoning algorithms and automated workflows to perform the logical troubleshooting steps that an engineer would execute to resolve a problem. This helps IT detect issues and vulnerabilities, analyze the root cause and execute corrective actions faster than ever. “As the pace of change and diversity of the environment continues to rapidly evolve, Cisco is committed to continually simplifying our solutions,” said Scott Harrell, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Cisco’s Enterprise Networking Business, “Artificial intelligence and machine learning can enable businesses to efficiently discern which issues to prioritize, becoming more nimble and proactive. This will have a profound effect on network operations and the IT teams that run them. At Cisco, we’re future proofing our networks and the workforce through automation and intelligence.” Reducing complexity with the multidomain network To help customers simplify the unprecedented complexity of modern IT, Cisco is building an architecture that spans every domain of the intent-based network – campus, branch, WAN, IoT, data center and cloud. Cisco has created solutions optimized to meet the unique needs of each of these networking domains. Today, Cisco is introducing new integrations, so users have a secure, consistent experience no matter where, when or how they connect. The new integrations allow for end-to-end: Network segmentation: The integration of Cisco SD-Access with Cisco SD-WAN and Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) makes it easier for IT teams to consistently authorize, onboard and segment users and devices across campus, branch, data center and cloud networks, even when users and applications change. Because of this segmentation, IT is able to safeguard against unauthorized access to sensitive data and critical applications. Application experience: Cisco now automatically conveys application requirements between the data center and the WAN, allowing the network to select the best path and prioritize traffic even if applications move or change. This allows IT teams to dynamically elevate application performance across the enterprise and branch. Pervasive security: As an industry leader in cybersecurity, Cisco is leveraging its security innovations across all domains. By extending the ability to detect threats in encrypted traffic across public clouds, and by protecting the campus, branch and WAN against threats, Cisco is providing the end-to-end security customers need. Cisco’s ecosystem drives innovation As the network becomes increasingly programmable, Cisco’s ecosystem of partners and developers has been crucial to drive innovation. To help organizations keep up with the relentless pace of change, Cisco DevNet, the company’s developer program, has introduced community-backed efforts to make adopting networking technology easy and accessible. This includes machine learning and artificial intelligence developer resources, which include use cases and resources to get started with new applications; the Cisco DevNet Automation Exchange, which contains a curated repository of code for all levels of network automation use cases; and the Cisco DNA Center Platform, which helps networking professionals and software developers alike to build new applications and integrations  

An update to one of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) information security documents offers strategies to help protect sensitive information that is stored in computers supporting critical government programs and high-value assets. The document, entitled ‘Draft NIST Special Publication (SP) 800-171 Revision 2: Protecting Controlled Unclassified Information in Nonfederal Systems and Organizations,’ now has a new draft companion publication, NIST SP 800-171B, that offers additional recommendations for handling controlled unclassified information (CUI) in situations where that information runs a higher than usual risk of exposure. CUI includes a wide variety of information types, from individuals’ names or social security numbers to critical defense information. When CUI is part of a critical program or a high value asset – such as a weapons system – it can become a significant target for high-end, sophisticated adversaries. In recent years, these programs and assets have been subjected to an ongoing barrage of serious cyberattacks, prompting the Department of Defense to request additional guidance from NIST. “We need to provide safeguards and countermeasures that can stand up to these attacks,” said NIST’s Ron Ross, one of the publication’s authors, “We are requesting comments on this initial public draft, which we hope will help organizations protect CUI against our most advanced and persistent adversaries.” NIST is accepting comments on both SP 800-171 Rev. 2, which received minor editorial updates, and SP 800- 171B until July 19, 2019. In the future, NIST plans to issue final versions of both publications. In addition, a previously available companion document, NIST SP 800-171A, will be updated with new assessment procedures for the enhanced security requirements. The original version of SP 800-171 appeared in 2015 and provided 110 recommended requirements to ensure the confidentiality of CUI residing on the computers of contractors and other organizations that interact with the government. The guidance in SP 800-171 supports more consistent and robust security implementations across the federal government’s supply chain. Over 60,000 unique business entities that serve as defense contractors are required to implement NIST SP 800-171 to protect CUI in their systems and networks. To address CUI in non-federal systems and organizations that support critical programs or that form part of a high value asset, NIST has created SP 800- 171B, which offers 32 recommended enhanced security requirements. This new companion publication does not alter the original guidance in the 2015 version, but simply provide additional tools to help deal with what are considered ‘advanced persistent threats’ – those adversaries which possess the expertise and resources to play the long game of cyber warfare. They often attempt to establish long-term footholds within a target’s infrastructure to steal information or undermine critical aspects of its mission, sometimes years after the initial breach. “When this happens, you need additional safeguards and countermeasures to confuse, deceive, mislead and impede the adversary,” Ross said, “The strategies in SP 800-171B can help you take away the adversary’s tactical advantage and protect and preserve your organization’s high value assets and critical programs, even after the adversary has penetrated your system.” “The game is not lost after that initial penetration or breach,” he said, “It’s just beginning.” The requirements in SP 800-171B are largely drawn from two other draft publications, NIST SP 800-160 Vol. 2 and NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5, both of which NIST is developing to help engineer security into information systems. Ross cautioned that only a small fraction of organizations would need to employ the new requirements. “It’s important to recognize that these requirements will only be levied upon a small percentage of programs and assets,” he said, “Determining what those are is up to individual federal departments and agencies.” Recognizing that many contractors do not have the in-house resources to implement the requirements fully, the revised draft indicates how an organization might use appropriate third-party contractors to perform specific tasks such as evaluating an organization’s resiliency to cyberattack or providing a security operations center capability. Ross also said that the requirements could be applied on a voluntary basis far beyond the world of government contracting, including in critical infrastructure systems. “Everyone has high value assets, from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies,” he said, “These enhanced defenses are great tools for anyone to use. We do our jobs primarily for the federal government, but everyone gets to take advantage of NIST’s cybersecurity guidance.”