Proactive approach to cyber security

You may be a small business owner with one or two fashion stores, or you may be responsible, perhaps, for mission-critical activities in high security buildings. Regardless of the size or complexity of your security system, the need for cyber security has never been greater.

Tyco believes the prime responsibility for combating access to confidential data or video by individual opportunistic hackers or organised criminal gangs lies squarely with the manufacturers of hardware and software solutions.

In this respect, the threat to the reputation of the electronic security industry and, more importantly, the potential consequential loss to its customers, has fully justified the significant efforts made by Tyco design engineers to ensure the credentials of security solutions is the company's number one priority, says Stuart Bettle, Video Product Marketing Manager EMEA for Tyco.

The Tyco Cyber Protection Program is one of the industry's first to offer a holistic approach to cyber security for physical security products. The six-part programme is designed to give installers, systems integrators and end-users the confidence that Tyco has minimised the possibility of introducing vulnerabilities into its electronic security solutions. It has been developed with the benefit of experience of providing high-security and mission-critical solutions to government and multinational customers over several decades.

The programme takes on-board feedback from IT, security professionals and cyber security experts in order to combine best practice during the product development, testing and evaluation process, as well as configuration guidelines for compliance in order to protect Tyco's physical security products from attack, damage, disruption, unauthorised access or misuse.

Tyco has set the bar extremely high with its Software House access control solutions, American Dynamics video management systems and Illustra IP cameras, and is committed to employing the same cyber safety mindset across other product lines within its product portfolio.

An unsecured IP camera or access control device can be the weakest link in any security system, as it offers the opportunity for hackers to find a way onto a company's network with the possibility to gain access to company confidential data, disable systems and disrupt operations. With this in mind, in addition to the testing conducted by Tyco's Cyber Protection team, it arranges for independent testing to be conducted annually on its products to ensure any new firmware or software updates do not open the 'back door'.

Tyco understands that a system secured today may become insecure tomorrow with the announcement of a new vulnerability. The Cyber Protection team is constantly monitoring a variety of sources, from the US National Vulnerability Database, to various media and professional sources, to identify new vulnerabilities that may impact the company's cyber program-compliant products.

Read more about the Tyco Cyber Protection Program.