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Safeguarding outdoor assets in a reliable and cost-effective manner often comes down to a single requirement – accurate intruder alerts and timely information about the unfolding event. While there are many technologies available for outdoor security, smart cameras with video analytics have emerged as the solution of choice for detecting intruders in real time outdoors. Yet the best technology will be handicapped if the alerts generated cannot be trusted. Repeated false alarms can eventually condition security operators to ignore real intrusions, undermining trust in the perimeter security system. In most cases the shortsighted response is to single out the security force as scapegoats, which ignores the real problem – alert fatigue. After responding to hundreds of perimeter breach alarms that turn out to be nothing more than small animals or windblown branches, even the most conscientious security guards lose confidence in the system and start to ignore its warnings. There is no longer any reason for this situation to exist. This design guide relates how smart video security technology, when properly deployed according to best practices, can cost-effectively protect outdoor assets with high accuracy and low nuisance alerts to help security forces stop intruders before they act. Start with the best detection: Use smart thermal cameras Viable outdoor security must start with a sensing system that is accurate, 24-hours per day. For this reason, conventional wisdom asserts that smart thermal cameras are the best system for detecting intruders outdoors. This is because thermal cameras see heat rather than light, so they are a perfect ‘human detector,’ and will ignore headlights, reflections off water, and other light-based activity, expanding their usefulness from their traditional role as night vision cameras to 24-hour intrusion detection solutions. Smart thermal cameras with built-in video analytic software offers several advantages: They detect in the dark with no need for costly artificial lighting. They work 24 hours/ day. They ignore reflections, shadows, moving headlights, direct sunlight, and other light-based phenomena that can trigger alarms in a visible camera detection system. Because humans give off heat, thermal sensors are far more effective in spotting a person than visible cameras. They detect body heat as far away as 600 meters – a third of a mile. A single thermal camera can protect an area the size of a football field. Proper physical design makes them immune to the effects of weather and other environmental factors. In the past, the higher price for thermal technology limited their use in commercial applications, but as costs continue to fall, many organizations are now able to choose thermal cameras as the foundation for their outdoor detection applications. Geo-registration and detection accuracy Smart thermal cameras are designed to detect movement, but outdoors, everything moves. A smart camera must be able to tell the difference between small objects such as leaves or debris and a person entering a secured area. One of the best ways for a camera to make this determination is through ‘geo-registration’ which provides the actual location and true size of all pixels in the camera’s field of view. Consider how human vision works: Our eyes give us depth perception – we can tell which object is close and which is far. But a ‘one-eyed’ camera can’t, unless it’s geo-registered. For example, a small animal near the camera will look much larger than a man at 300 meters away. (Figure 1) A smart camera needs to ignore the animal at right while alerting on the distant person, even though the animal will cover more of the camera’s field of view. The same approach applies to blowing trash, clouds, and other moving things which are always present outdoors. With a camera that is geo-registered, such non-security related movement will be ignored and will not send alarms. Essentially, geo-registration enables a three-dimensional capability for a smart thermal camera. From this information, geospatial analytic rules can be used to eliminate movement based on size while still detecting human-sized intruders under all conditions. Geo-registered analytics in action: From-to Zones Motion zones are often used by video analytic systems to detect the movement of objects and to send an alert to notify security that an intruder has been detected. By default, any object moving within a motion zone triggers an alarm. However, when used for outdoor applications, motion zones can lead to an abundance of nuisance alerts because they lack the discriminating intelligence to recognize the difference between ‘unimportant’ movement caused by the natural environment and ‘relevant’ movement that represents a security threat. Cameras that are geo-registered can create more intelligent rules called From-To Zones, an important tool for reducing nuisance alerts while maintaining a high probability of detection. Targets detected in a From-To Zone will only trigger an alarm when a specifically sized object – such as a person – moves from one zone into another defined area of the camera’s field of view. Correspondingly, objects that are not detected coming from one zone into the other are ignored. From-To Zones are a very powerful method for reducing unwarranted alarms. Importantly, they can be configured to detect zones that are geo-registered to the ground. This means From-To Zones will only alarm when a person’s feet have been in the ‘From’ and then enter the ‘To’ area, while ignoring detections that only show a part of a person such as their head. This is particularly useful when the security area includes a fence, and you only want to detect pedestrians who have crossed over the perimeter into the security zone. To see how From-To Zones work in the real world, consider an application where you need to detect pedestrians approaching the perimeter, but are not concerned about people leaving the building. With From-To Zones, the camera will only trigger an alert when intruders move towards the facility – ignoring everyone else, and greatly reducing unnecessary alarms. For another example, consider a windy perimeter around an active construction site where trash blows around the scene. Inevitably, the trash will collect along the fence and grow in size…

The security landscape continues to evolve in new and complex ways. This evolution brings change on many levels, which offers an opportunity for improvement rather than an interruption or a distraction. This concept has never been more important as you face today’s combination of new technologies, escalating security threats and the need to derive greater value from the access control infrastructure while solving increasingly complex system integration challenges. Upgrading from older, legacy technology to a new access control standard is a significant initiative. However, recent advancements have made this transition easier. Organizations can now move from solutions to more dynamic access control technologies that provide greater value. Adopting a new technology standard allows organizations to take advantage of enhanced functionality and a higher level of security. Access control is moving to more integrated systems with multi-layered security that can include multiple facilities. Today’s more dynamic solutions allow organizations to embrace new levels of convenience and utility. Organizations need not only support the requirements of today, but must also look ahead to the needs of tomorrow. The initial motivation to adopt a new standard of access control may be to improve security or to consolidate multiple locations under a single standard. Now is the time to use advances in access control to build a foundation for addressing unanticipated change and evolving security threats. Strong organizations will take full advantage of the opportunities that upgrading to a more modern solution affords. Reasons to upgrade Data privacy As a result of new legislation or regulatory requirements, an organization may be required to increase its security. Similarly, if a company acquires a new client needing a high level of safety, there may be requirements to improve access control. New building tenants may also trigger the need for greater building or campus security, either to protect the parent organization or to comply with the tenant’s requirements. Implementing new, more dynamic access control technologies provides many benefits over maintaining older, more static ones. Organizations are facing an environment of evolving threats, and the challenges of maintaining the security and privacy of identity data are ever greater. Growing demand for a higher level of security and the convenience of using mobile devices for access control is driving change and spurring innovation. The unfortunate reality is that sometimes it takes an unexpected event or security breach to prompt an organization to upgrade their access control system. By making the right steps in moving toward a more reliable, upgraded access control standard, organizations can meet the need for security and privacy with confidence, leveraging investment well into the future. User convenience The freedom to move access control to phones, tablets, wristbands, watches and other wearables offers choice and convenience to end users, along with new and more convenient ways to open doors and gates. Today, smart devices are always on hand. Users do not have to maintain and carry multiple cards or keys. In parking garages or at driveway gates, for example, the longer reach of the Bluetooth smart communications standard makes it possible to drive up to the gate without having to roll down the car window and reach out to activate a reader. Some smart device sensors, most notably the gyroscope and accelerometer, enable gesture detection. This offers an additional benefit for access control – the ability to open doors from a distance by performing intuitive gestures. This provides an extra layer of authentication for added security. It is predicted that there will be nearly 155 million smart wearable devices in use by 2019. These truly ‘always-on’ devices are even more natural candidates for access control applications because of the ready-to-use convenience of a wearable device. Flexibility Organizations need a platform that is flexible enough to support multiple applications for managing not only physical access (e.g., buildings) but for managing logical access (e.g., computer/ software login, time and attendance, etc.) as well. Organizations that want to add new applications such as time and attendance, secure print management, biometrics, cashless vending and more, will need to issue an associated card to users. This requirement can be used as an opportunity to migrate to a contactless wearable or smartphone that combines access control with these or other functions, enabling employees to carry a single device for many purposes. Administration of these functions should be centralized into one efficient and cost-effective system to enable organizations to create a fully interoperable, multi-layered security solution across company networks, systems and facilities. In the future, they can migrate to the convenience, editability, and security of carrying digital keys and credentials on smartphones and other mobile devices. Data privacy, user convenience and flexibility go hand in hand Organizations have been tasked with keeping up with a variety of technology changes that impact the physical access control (PACS) infrastructure. These changes include accommodating two-year PC refresh cycles, 18 month average mobile device lifespans and policy changes surrounding the move to ‘Bring Your Own Device’ (BYOD). Additionally, there is increased network access via mobile devices due to the rapid growth of tablets, laptops and smartphones. Legacy security solutions often use proprietary technology that is static, providing little or no possibility for functional enhancement, or the ability to offer higher levels of data privacy. This inability to adapt makes them easy targets for attack. Often, legacy technologies are anchored to obsolete software, devices, protocols and products, making it difficult for the access control infrastructure to facilitate change. Built on breakthrough technologies, the latest high frequency access control systems ensure security is independent of hardware and media. This makes it much easier for organizations to support new functionality and higher levels of data privacy. They also enable the provisioning of secure identity credentials to smart devices, offering organizations the choice to use smart cards, mobile devices or both. Additionally, they offer functionality for access control beyond the door, which may include secure print release, network access, time and attendance or cashless vending. Upgrading your access control technology: A solid investment If you continue to invest in outdated…

A recent article by Taylor Armerding of CSO Online explores the current state of the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) program managed by MITRE. He expands on the creeping belief that the CVE, the old-guard vulnerability ‘dictionary,’ is falling behind and leaving security teams and technologies that rely on it open to risk. And although MITRE is taking measures to close the gap – including dedicating more resources to vetting and assigning CVE identifiers to vulnerabilities – the response among some experts is that these will not be enough to rectify the outdated model. MITRE has certainly made strides to bolster the system, logging 6,592 new vulnerabilities with CVE IDs in the first half of 2017 alone – compare that to 6,431 CVE IDs logged in all of 2016. From January to June of this year, MITRE has published on average 1,133 new CVE IDs each month. That’s a 210 percent increase over the 536 new CVE IDs per month average of 2016. While increasing the number of vulnerabilities catalogued by the CVE system is generally good (many technologies use CVE IDs and some baseline vulnerability management programs rely on them almost entirely), it still doesn’t solve the issue of prioritization. Enterprises already have hundreds of thousands – even millions – of vulnerabilities in their organization. Assigning more CVE-IDs doesn’t directly lead to better security or even signify that more vulnerabilities exist today than in the past – it means more efforts are being dedicated to discovering, analyzing and cataloging vulnerabilities. Combined with a technology environment in a state of constant proliferation, this inevitably means more CVEs and vulnerabilities in general. Currently, organizations are overwhelmed with too many vulnerability alerts to manage proficiently, so many of them are looking to advanced vulnerability management programs to help them better prioritize. In a recent report on vulnerability prioritization, Gartner analyst Craig Lawson points out that the lofty goal of ‘patch everything, all the time, everywhere’ is not only rarely fulfilled, it’s causing friction between IT security and IT operations. Focusing on the right vulnerabilities Vulnerability teams, however, don’t need to patch everything all the time. The same report states, “Only a small number of vulnerabilities go on to be exploited in real-world attacks.” This means vulnerability management programs should be structured to help teams zero in on the vulnerabilities most likely to be used in an attack – a smaller portion than all CVEs. Exploited vulnerabilities only make up a single digit of CVE-ID vulnerabilities published each month. (The spike in March 2017 in the chart below represents the vulnerabilities leveraged in the Eternal Blue exploit, famously used in WannaCry and NotPetya.) Vulnerabilities with a published proof-of-concept exploit (but inactive) represent a slightly larger portion, but still total less than 100 vulnerabilities published per month. With this information, security teams can: Focus resources on the vulnerabilities that are actually exploited in the wild first, as those are the ones that pose imminent threat to the organization. Employ mitigating controls (e.g., intrusion prevention systems, network segmentation, application controls, privileges management) to prevent lower priority vulnerabilities from being exploited when those vulnerabilities can’t be patched in a reasonable period of time, or when there is no patch available. To help classify vulnerability risks even further, the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) was developed over ten years ago to help organizations prioritize vulnerability remediation. It is a reasonable approach to vulnerability remediation in theory; however, implementation was never fully realized because of the lack of vendor resources. So, only base CVSS scores have been used and have proved insufficient for prioritizing vulnerability remediation. Unfortunately, this is the method many vulnerability management programs rely on. For all of its shortcomings, CVSS scores don’t consider the organization’s unique environment, the current threat landscape and other situational factors. For example, a vulnerability with a ‘high’ CVSS score may not be exploitable in a particular network if the surrounding architecture and security policies provide sufficient defense. Similarly, a CVSS high-severity vulnerability on a low value asset is less of a priority to fix than a CVSS medium severity vulnerability on a business critical asset. Cyberattackers frequently leverage vulnerabilities carrying a medium severity CVSS score, perhaps because they know many vulnerability management programs are only capable of fixing CVSS critical vulnerabilities, never making it to the lower ranking items on their to do list. The 2016 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report also points out that successful exploits from the previous year targeted a large number of vulnerabilities with CVEs assigned more than five years ago – presumably, that organizations never got around to fixing. How Skybox is improving vulnerability prioritization At the Skybox Research Lab, our team of analysts daily scour more than 30 security data sources and investigates more than 700,000 sites, including in the dark web. With this research, the Lab provides insight to active and available exploits, vulnerabilities being packaged in ransomware, exploit kits and other tools in use by various attackers. The Research Lab has its own vulnerability catalog, which includes CVE vulnerabilities. But roughly 10 percent of this catalog also covers vulnerabilities with no CVE ID, including many on technologies in the IoT domain. This gives Skybox users a more complete scope of the vulnerabilities that could threaten their security. With the added intelligence of how vulnerabilities are being targeted in the wild, the Research Lab provides much needed context to improve prioritization in terms that put vulnerabilities posing an imminent threat at the top of your to do list. By focusing on vulnerabilities with active or known exploits as well as vulnerabilities that are exposed in your network (no mitigating controls in place), organizations can more effectively use existing resources to minimize the risk of a breach. However, this should be augmented with gradual risk reduction over time of the other vulnerabilities in the network i.e., through mitigation or patching, which could turn into threats over time. While both CVE and CVSS provide relevant information to vulnerability management programs and technology, they fall…

New research on consumer preferences for full autonomy in new vehicles finds the technology is not yet popular among a broad audience, according to analysts at IHS Markit. Ironically, the same audience ranked it among the very features they would be willing to pay the most for in their next new vehicle purchase. The IHS research findings demonstrate a wide variety of viewpoints from consumers across leading global markets. Blind spot detection ranked highest as the most desired features among all audiences, young and old, and propensity to pay for it varied by region, with the U.S. respondents reporting they would be willing to pay significantly more for the technology than consumers in other regions. Responses from more than 5,000 vehicle owners intending to purchase a new vehicle within the next 36 months were reviewed in the 2017 Autonomous Driving and Urban Mobility Consumer Analysis , representing five key automotive markets – the U.S., Canada, China, Germany and the United Kingdom. This is the fifth annual survey of its kind from IHS Markit and identified key attributes for consumers, providing insight into preferences, desires and future interest as new vehicle intenders return to market. A number of subjects were covered. “In terms of ADAS safety features like automatic emergency braking and blind spot detection, consumers wanted to see these features standard across the board,” said Colin Bird, Senior Automotive Technology Analyst for IHS Markit and Co-author of the report, “There is a large subset of consumers who are willing to pay for full autonomy features demonstrating that consumers see this more as a value-add rather than a necessary safety component, at least for now.” Just 44 percent of all respondents indicated that full autonomy would be a desirable feature on their next car, the lowest rank of all of the technologies included in this subsection of the survey. Interestingly, however, it also ranked as the technology that consumers would be most willing to pay for, according to IHS Markit. Price points varied by country, with US consumers indicating they would pay the highest price to have the feature in their next new vehicle. German consumers surveyed about the cost of the technology added to a new vehicle purchase, German respondents indicated they would be willing to pay $1016 for it, nearly 20 percent more than the US audience. Among consumers surveyed in China, more than 72 percent of respondents reported desire for full autonomy as a feature in their next new vehicle, the highest of all the regions surveyed. They also expressed a willingness to pay for it at the highest cost among other technologies, noting a price point of $557. Many also were interested in related technologies, according to IHS Markit. These included blind spot detection (89 percent), automatic emergency braking (92 percent), lane departure warning (88 percent), highway autopilot (83 percent), autonomous co-pilot (81 percent). In comparison, just over half of U.S. consumers surveyed indicated full autonomy is a desired feature in their next new vehicle, though they too seem willing to pay the most for it over other technologies; noting an average willingness to spend $780 to have the technology on their next new vehicle. In addition, U.S. consumers are interested in blind spot detection, navigation systems, automatic emergency braking and steering wheel mounted controls. From a global perspective, highway autopilot also was mentioned as a top technology among consumers surveyed from all regions, but also at a variety of costs. US consumers indicated a willingness to pay $107 more than their nearest counterparts to have their next new vehicle equipped with the technology. Younger drivers more comfortable with full autonomy than older drivers The survey also researched comfort level with vehicle technology by age of the respondent groups. Across all geographies, younger drivers, including Millennials and Generation Z respondents, were more interested in full autonomy than other generational groups, with 61 percent suggesting it as a feature of interest in their next new vehicle. Generation X, baby boomers and the swing generation all trail in level of interest significantly, even though these new and evolving technologies will present the greatest opportunity to make transportation and mobility easier for older generations. In addition, respondents widely reported that driving alone was their leading form of transportation, seconded by walking and public transit. In addition, respondents in China indicated a very strong response to ride hailing and car-sharing services, with 42 percent indicating use of ride-hailing and 16 percent having engaged in car sharing in the last 12 months. US respondents were less likely; while respondents from Germany and the UK reported some use. If vehicle insurance rates were based on how often consumers used self-driving features, consumers felt slightly different about it. In China, 70 percent of respondents indicated they would be more open to self-driving features. Respondents in Germany were least likely, with just 32 percent reporting it would have an impact for them. “Among new car intenders, ride-hailing services aren’t used as often as a daily commuting option. Instead, the research found that ride-hailing is used more often for weekend trips, errands, and vacations,” Bird said, “Interestingly, new car intenders are more likely to be drivers for hailing service companies like Uber and DiDi than they are to be passengers. This is particularly the case in the UK, Germany and Canada, which suggests there could be a lucrative sales model in these markets for automakers.”

Ever expanding, cities today must pay more attention to protect their people and properties. It is evident to anyone with access to global news that now even the most developed cities are faced with huge safety threats, ranging from terrorists’ attacks aiming at well-populated areas and historically significant places to road accidents that keep increasing with the number of automobiles. A smart and integrated system for urban security is an urgent need, which Dahua is competent to provide. Time to do it smartly Boasting its AI technologies and highly integrated platform, Dahua smart city solution aims to address safety issues of mega-cities without dramatically expanding police forces. To be more specific, the deep-learning empowered video surveillance performs timely and effective risk detection. The unified platform allows faster emergency response, and the powerful data mining helps get more insights from the data front-end systems collected. Combined together, Dahua smart city solution gives unprecedented advantages. For example, the deep-learning redefines the capabilities of video analysis. Dahua achieved 99.78% facial recognition accuracy in LFW (Labeled Faces in the Wild, a well-known facial recognition benchmark for academic purpose) in October, 2016. Moreover, deep-leaning even allows instant classification of human and vehicle appearing in video, capturing extract detailed features such as clothe color, gender, headwear, bag for human and license plate number, vehicle color, size, mark, model, cellphone usage, seat belt usage for vehicle etc.  Four working stages of Dahua smart city solution The overall working process of Dahua smart city solution can be viewed in four stages that are prevention, detection, response and investigation. By improving each, it can improve the city running in general. The Stage of Prevention means picking out and focusing on potentially dangerous persons and factors before they really do harm to public safety. This requires the ability of collecting and analyzing big data. Dahua’s smart city solution provides advanced forecasting models that give a better chance of predicting events. For example, with comprehensive analysis of violation data collected by traffic enforcement cameras, the system can generate a watch list for the vehicles with numerous violation records. The Stage of Detection involves real time surveillance in various forms, including deployment of 360-degree panoramic camera and ultra-long range, all weather monitoring thermal camera etc. In addition to multifunctional cameras, Dahua’s deep-learning empowered smart video surveillance can automatically detect risky individuals and activities from massive data collected. In fact, Dahua traffic enforcement system helped Hangzhou city automatically detect 29,823 vehicles’ illegal behavior during G20 Summit, which greatly reduced the burden on policemen who thus could put more focus on protecting key summit area. The Stage of Response enables key organizations in the city to react to security threats in real time. Dahua improves the communication efficiency through its integrated platform, allowing unified command and centralized data storage as well as cross-department information sharing. if a natural disaster takes place in the city, Dahua smart city solution can report it on a single e-map with available emergency response resources to all relevant departments and agencies, while providing seamless monitoring of the site to all units approaching. The Stage of Investigation analyzes all data collected by different systems and provide insights to facilitate the recovery of crucial incident like crime after it happened. In this stage, technologies such as video synopsis provide a short summary including all moving objects of a long video and supports query moving object according to different characteristics like size, color, direction and speed. Besides, there’re a rich set of data mining methods like active area analysis, active target analysis and trajectory analysis. So if a criminal tries to escape with different clothes or cars he is highly unlikely to make it in a city equipped with Dahua smart city solution. Multidimensional benefits Smart City Solution delivers on Dahua’s promise of ‘Safer society, smart living’ in 4 key metrics. Government investment measures the level of continued commitment by governments to maintain good function and development of systems in place. After deploying smart city solution, London’s police investment declined by 10% yet the criminal activity prevention score actually improved by 0.5% since 2015. Safety result measures changes in the levels of crime and risk to citizens. It also assesses the public’s perception of how well the city’s authorities can respond to incidents. This is improved by the efficiency savings that Dahua’s surveillance systems provide. Social benefits assess the ability of the public to enjoy entertainment and leisure activities safely and how their affinity for the government changes. Economic benefit accounts for personal wealth, spending on tourism and retail along with employment rates and the city’s protection against short-term economic fluctuations. Smart city solutions benefit everyone in all four aspects above. Governments can decrease spending and crime rates at the same time whilst increasing citizen safety, survival rates and citizen approval rating. Citizens will be safer and enjoy better living standards without the burden of increased public spending. In short, they will be happier with both the government and their lives. Summary By remaining ahead of the market with expertise in intelligent visual processing technologies and emphasizing its core value propositions of innovation, quality and service, Dahua Technology will continuously contribute to a safer society and smarter living, benefiting city dwellers worldwide.   By Balasubramanian Jayam Head of Marketing (India & SAARC) Dahua Technology Co., Ltd.  

Deep Learning has swept through the IT industry, bringing benefits and better classifications to a number of applications. Inspired by the way the human brain works, the technology uses a layered learning process to enable the computer to classify, store and access data, which it can then refer to for learning. This means it can use a whole image to recognise, rather than relying on separate elements of that image. This is a cumulative process – the more elements it has to draw on, the better the classification – thus, the better the ‘learning.’ The benefits of this technology for face recognition and image classification make it hugely valuable in the field of security. It touches on every aspect of the security industry – from facial and vehicle detection to behaviour analysis. This, in turn, starts to change the focus of security from being reactive to being able to predict problems before they happen. Hikvision has taken this technology and innovated a family of products to maximise its use. The DeepInview IP camera range and the DeepInmind NVR range work together to provide all the power and benefits of Deep Learning. While the cameras provide the smart ‘eyes’ of the system, the NVR represents the analytic and storage capabilities of the brain. The products help to tackle security on two fronts – recognition, monitoring and counting of people, and recognition and detection of vehicles. This uses Deep Learning technology at its most effective – for its ability to classify and recognise thousands of ‘features.’ Obviously, this multi-layered approach uses a lot of memory and performance, which is one of the reasons why the technology has become much more widespread in the past few years. To put this into perspective, in the first stages of the technology, it took 1,000 devices with 16,000 CPUs to simulate a neural network; now, just a few GPUs are needed. Hikvision is partnering with the largest of the chipset brands – Intel and nVidia – to explore the possibilities of Deep Learning for the surveillance industry. Hikvision’s innovation also facilitates and improves on this. The H.265+ codec radically reduces transmission bandwidth and data storage capacity requirements. This means there’s no loss of quality even though the data being shared and stored is exponentially higher. Applications are numerous. The technology could enable the system to provide a black list/ white list alarm, which could come in very handy in access control scenarios. It could also be used to recognise unusual behaviour – possibly allowing security staff to prevent an issue if people are found loitering nearby, for example. The new premium range of products will further extend the quality and capabilities of security systems. They will also allow security professionals to start planning to avoid issues, rather than reacting to them. This could be the next evolution of the whole industry – using AI to change the world, one Hikvision solution at a time.     By Ashish P. Dhakan – MD & CEO, Prama Hikvision