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Security beyond guns, guards and gates

Leveraging IT to secure the physical infrastructure will allow lives to be saved while bringing down the cost of securing the infrastructure, writes Varun Aggarwal

In recent years, terrorists have moved beyond targeting busy markets and cramped trains, to attacking luxury hotels, malls, hospitals, schools and office complexes.

In the aftermath of the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai, both the government and the private sector have increased their spending on surveillance. They are charting out new plans to tackle emergencies and deploying new disaster management initiatives. City surveillance has emerged as a key concern. The heightened security climate has led to the increased consumption of security products.

There is a positive attitude towards the issue of security in the country and the need of the hour is to ensure that this issue does not go on the back burner. Organizations in the private sector, especially hotels, retail chains, banks and other corporate bigwigs are considering security products and solutions to ensure safety and security. V Rajendran, Vice President, HCL Security Ltd, opined, “After recent incidents, the adoption of security technology has increased and there will be continued growth in the near term. There is a trend among organizations across sectors be it banking, IT, transportation or retail, including the government, of hastening to upgrade their security installations in light of the recent terror attacks.”

“Today a few security personnel are grossly inadequate as we need high technology to counter advanced security threats. In fact, security should not be viewed as a function of the investment made, as the benefits of a good security system outweigh the cost implications,” Rajendran added.

Prakash Prabhu, Country Manager, Axis Communications, India, opined, “In the past, surveillance technology was represented primarily by analog technology, better known as Closed-circuit television (CCTV). However, for the past few years, a shift in technology is taking place in the surveillance industry from analog to IP-based or digital or network video surveillance technology. IP-Surveillance is a term for a security system that gives users the ability to monitor and record video and/or audio over an Internet Protocol (IP) based computer network such as a LAN or the Internet. Unlike analog video systems that use dedicated point-to-point analog cabling from the camera location to the viewing/recording station, in an IP-Surveillance application, digitized audiovisual streams can be sent to any location—even around the world, if desired—via a wired or wireless IP network, enabling video monitoring and recording from anywhere with network access.”

The security market is growing at 20-30% annually. As per an Assocham report, the security industry should reach Rs 50,000 crore by 2011; it was an Rs 22,000 crore industry as of December 2008. Companies are likely to increase their security budgets by 35-40%.

According to Frost & Sullivan, the CCTV cameras and systems market was worth Rs 525 crores in CY2008. According to Niju V, Deputy Director - South Asia & Middle East, Automation & Electronics, Frost & Sullivan, “The increased threat perception has led to the security infrastructure undergoing a makeover from being an ornamental function to that of a key support function in the sphere of operations. Technology is already playing a major role as an enabler. CCTV cameras and systems incorporate the latest in ICT technologies such as digital communications, IP communications, embedded and application software for device level and integrated platforms, wireless communications among others. These technologies have facilitated faster installation, smaller form factor, compatibility with existing systems, a higher quantum of data storage, faster retrieval and user friendliness.”

Rehana Qureshi, Regional Marketing Director, G4S plc, North Africa, Middle East & Southern Asia, opined, “Technology is already facilitating a secure physical infrastructure. It proactively provides data

to security officers. Advanced Integrated Security Management Systems have integrated physical access, surveillance, alarms and fire into a common platform. This system can be seamlessly integrated at the system level to react to any alarm or security breach.”

IT’s role in physical security

Earlier physical security was restricted to guns, guards and gates. That is now shifting and moving towards a more holistic approach of looking at the network as a platform, with some level of intelligence. IT plays an important role in smartening the existing security infrastructure. Naval Khosla - Program Manager - Government Sector Solutions & Trusted Identity Initiative, India Software Labs – IBM, said, “In smart surveillance, the video surveillance system creates meta data about the object which it is capturing. For e.g. We can command the system to look out for a red colored car. You can secure airports by sensing the motion of a person. In case a person goes to the washroom with a bag and comes out without it, the system would know that this is suspicious behavior and it triggers an alert. Similarly, it can also find a lot of unusual behavior, unattended objects etc.”

Nareshchandra Singh – Principal Research Analyst, Gartner, opined, “There is a change in awareness of new technologies and IT solutions for security. There are cameras today that give you better visibility and they are plug and play. Most of these use open technologies, unlike the proprietary technologies used in the past.”

Suprabhat Chatterjee, VP Infrastructure & Physical Safety & Security, Cisco India & SAARC, said, “Cameras have been there for a while but the market is transitioning from analog to digital IP systems. The concept of network as a platform is driving IP technology deployments. People are shifting from just prevention to making the system disaster proof. You need the network as a platform to integrate all of your key assets and then tie them back to the various responding agencies like the fire fighting system, ambulance, emergency response vehicles, etc.”

Building a robust IT-based security framework

According to Chatterjee, “There are five tenets for security: prepare, prevent, detect, assess and respond. The only way to do justice to all these tenets is by converging all of these by using a common layer. Otherwise, each of these would exist in silos. For e.g. If we talk about the prepare part, we are talking about planning and policies deployments and the need to have end-to-end policy. Prevention means guards, access controls, physical obstacles, cameras and other deterrents. This part is simple but today it works in a silo and does not talk to anything else. So what we are trying to do is to bring all of these together so that I know exactly how to communicate with the guards, prepare guards to take intelligent decisions, or make the camera intelligent enough to, say, recognize a gunshot and determine the protocol to respond to the same.”

“We are looking at monitoring data, identifying an incident, to check whether it is a true incident or not; analyzing the raw data and taking intelligent decisions based on the same. This is only possible if I have a way to capture the data, and then once I have assessed and done research on it, I can decide how to respond. At that point, I need a way to communicate the decision to the response side,” he added.

Apart from intelligence and policing, technology is the third important pillar in a security system. Rajendran explained, “HCL Security has recently introduced the concept of a Safe State which is an architecture that leverages technology to build a security framework that will safeguard life, infrastructure and society. It is an integrated technology solution that can help secure a state, city and critical or vulnerable areas, buildings or facilities such as hotels, hospitals, educational institutions, transport, railways, IT-ITES establishments, utilities and SEZs.”

The key feature of Safe State is that it integrates physical surveillance and security solutions with technology.

The project will enhance the existing capabilities of the system, leveraging the following modules.

• State of the art technologies: The state will be equipped with futuristic technologies that will help monitor, track, detect, prevent and respond to threats and distress calls. These technologies will also help the revenue generating departments like State Tax Departments, Traffic Departments, Police Departments and Municipalities by providing vital information that will help them to function effectively.
• Analysis & Enforcement: Once information is provided to the concerned departments, analysis and enforcement can easily be enabled. Based on the level of importance ground units and control units can be contacted to respond rapidly to a situation in a coherent manner.
• Connectivity: Connectivity being the core component of the project, it can be enabled either in wired or wireless mode.

Another security hazard is the Identity resolution. Khosla explained, “I can write my name at one place as Naval Khosla, as N Khosla in another place and Khosla N at yet another. Although all these names correspond to me, it is often difficult to collect consistent information about one person. IBM Identity Resolution retains and utilizes data that other technologies would purge in order to extract maximum intelligence. Identity Resolution powers the only identity repository that perpetually self corrects and enhances identities in streaming mode as data enters the system in real-time. Through Identity Resolution, an organization can construct a central or operational identity repository as a platform for all of its knowledge-based applications.”

Challenges in security deployments

According to Niju V, “The biggest challenge is to bring about a perception change among the users. They continue to view security as a cost and not as an investment. Video surveillance acts as a deterrent and as a tool for post crime investigation. The usage of analog systems burdens the user with data storage facilities. Instead, the digital medium can reduce the need for physical storage of data and lead to better integration with information management systems. The use of IP cameras further assists in achieving a smaller form factor and lower maintenance.”

Qureshi added, “Organizations are unclear about what they would like to achieve with video surveillance. Another issue the organizations are facing is with regard to the range of available systems as they find it hard to differentiate between these systems in order to choose the right solution.”

Chatterjee added, “The biggest challenge in any attack has been with regard to framing a suitable response. It is easy to do a post-mortem and analyze the data, but responding to the situation at that point has been the biggest challenge because of the lack of a common platform to integrate these systems together and allow someone to take an intelligent decision based on the information that was available at that point of time.”

Reducing TCO

Technological advances have reduced the cost of installing and managing a security system. An IP-based surveillance system is a system that grows with your needs. The initial investment and installation have to be made keeping future requirements in mind. The adoption of IP-based surveillance system enables the addition of any number of network video products to the existing system.

A recent study showed that an IP-based system offers a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) than a similarly sized analog-based surveillance system. In addition, with the inclusion of embedded applications in surveillance cameras, there is no need for security personnel to study the footage continuously.

Management and equipment costs have also come down as the back-end applications and storage now run on industry standard, open systems-based servers, not on proprietary hardware such as a DVR in the case of an analog CCTV system.

According to Prabhu, “With intelligent applications, it is possible to ensure that only relevant data is captured by the surveillance camera. This, in turn, saves storage space. IP video surveillance has ended the use of video cassettes as a medium for saving footage captured on surveillance cameras for all practical purposes. This is advantageous as footage from IP surveillance cameras can now be stored on PCs, making it easier to manage and upgrade the system if necessary.”

Singh added, “The traditional method of surveillance is to capture the image and manually monitor it from a command center. However, the personnel in the command center cannot be alert at all times and they can only view things from their perspective. However, if the system is programmed to send out alerts such as a new face has been seen in a high security area or suppose that you are in some manufacturing unit where people wear a uniform, the system should send an alarm to alert about a new person who is not in uniform.”

He added, “All hardware is becoming standards based, which improves the price point and the ability to manage devices in a better way. This also helps in investment protection when it comes to surveillance cameras. Moreover, you do not require CCTV monitors to monitor the video feed as the regular computer monitor, which the organization would be using already can be leveraged for this. Moreover, these feeds can be recorded on any digital media.”

IP-based networks and wireless options are also inexpensive alternatives to traditional coaxial and fiber cabling for an analog CCTV system.

The way ahead

The emerging model in physical security in India, especially for the SMBs, would be something derived from the IT world namely security as a service. Globally AT&T, Verizon offer security as service, wherein you do not need to buy any cameras, or storage or monitoring equipment. This is a model, which we could end up seeing in India as well.

In order to get live feeds from countries promoting terror activities, IBM has developed a solution that can translate feeds in real-time. TALES is a UIMA-based system, which performs multimedia mining and translation of broadcast news and news Web sites. For broadcast video news, TALES performs video capture, key frame extraction, automatic speech-to-text conversion, machine translation of the foreign text to English, and information extraction. English speakers can monitor the translated news in near real time, or place English language queries over the stored foreign language content, and get results, both video segments as well as Web pages from any of the supported languages all translated into English into a single search result page. Several companies have deployed TALES at for monitoring Arabic, Chinese, and English broadcast news sources.

Another technology to look out for from IBM would be IBM Multimedia Analysis and Retrieval System. IMARS is a powerful system that can be used to automatically index, classify, and search large collections of digital images and videos. IMARS works by applying computer-based algorithms that analyze visual features of the images and videos, and subsequently allows them to be automatically organized and searched based on their visual content.

The threat perception has come to stay. The mantra for organizations is simple: Invest in electronic security and surveillance systems to be safe and productive.

varun.aggarwal@expressindia.com