Page 8 - Security Today, April 2017

INDUSTRY FOCUS With Ralph C. Jensen, Editor-in-Chief
Seriously,
ICybersecurity Insurance
Products | Technology | Solutions
www.securitytoday.com
t wasn’t that long ago that cybersecurity wasn’t even part of the physical secu- rity dialog. The thought of a network or individual cameras getting hacked brought cybersecurity into the security
picture pretty quickly. Cyber questions also arise when discussing cameras being manu- factured in China.
Pierre Racz, president and CEO of Ge- netec, is very frank about his company drop- ping VMS support for Chinese government- owned camera manufacturers.
“We have said very categorically, that we don’t support [the cameras] out of the box. You [end user] will need a special license and for us to grant that license you need to sign a waiver that you will hold us harmless if those devices attack you or attack other people on the network,” Racz said.
He also stated that the company is doing everything possible to protect end users from cyber-attacks. In fact, Racz said they have a campaign underway, reaching out to consul- tants as well as end users, telling them that they should insist on cyber incompetence insurance from manufacturers and from the integrator.
If this concept seems a little far-fetched, it’s not. Cyber and privacy insurance policies have been around for about 10 years. It is not a booming business model, but with so many breaches, so often, perhaps it is a logical in- vestment. An insurance policy would cover a business’ liability for a data breach in which a customers’ personal information is exposed or stolen by a hacker or criminal who gained access to the network.
Cyber insurance underwriters lack knowledge and data to make a policy effec- tive and secure. There are generally more risks relating to IT infrastructure and activi- ties, so where does that place the physical se- curity network? Risks of this nature are typi- cally excluded from traditional commercial general liability policies or at least are not specifically defined in traditional insurance products. Coverage provided by cyber-insur- ance policies may include first-party cover- age against losses such as data destruction, extortion, theft, hacking, and denial of ser- vice attacks; liability coverage indemnifying companies for losses to others caused, for example, by errors and omissions, failure to
Volume 21, No. 4
EDITORIAL STAFF
Editor-in-Chief/Associate Publisher Senior Editor
E-news Editor
Content Editor
ART STAFF
Art Director
PRODUCTION STAFF
Production Coordinator
EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD
Ralph C. Jensen Lindsay Page Brent Dirks Sydny Shepard
Dale Chinn Teresa Antonio
Titima Ongkantongt/Shutterstock.com
8
XX17 | SECURITY TODAY
safeguard data, or defamation; and other benefits including regular security-audit, post-incident public relations and investiga- tive expenses and criminal reward funds.
Considering best practices for network security, Fredrik Nilsson, general manager at Americas for Axis Communications has written that all network devices are subject to threats. This most certainly includes network cameras, which are always part of the larger system where the network is the backbone.
“All parts are vulnerable, either as a sys- tem or as individual devices, and the system needs protection,” Nilsson has written in his second edition of Intelligent Network Video. “It is not, however, possible to create a sys- tem that is 100 percent secure, at least not a usable system. The system can only be made more secure by reducing exposure areas and mitigating risks, but there will always be some level of risk that needs to be accepted.”
Cybersecurity is a weakness in firmware, hardware, system interfaces and so forth where a flaw can be exploited for a malicious attack. That doesn’t mean it would be easy to exploit that weakness.
Limit access to the network and those re- sources, and when installing an IP camera sys- tem, make sure there are no counterfeit parts, and that the chip set does not have a backdoor, allowing unwanted guests to creep inside.
INFRASTRUCTURE SOLUTIONS GROUP
Thomas Carnevale, president/CEO, Sentry 360 William Crews, President/CEO,
Security & Resilience Consulting, LLC, Houston Rob Hile, Securadyne Systems, Pensacola, Florida Chris Lanier, LRG Inc., Jasper, Texas
Alan T. Mather, NASA, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston
SALES
Randy Easton Brian Rendine Sam Baird Peter Kao
904-261-5584
972-687-6761 +44 1883 715 697 +886-2-2949-6412
President & Group Publisher Group Circulation Director Group Marketing Director Group Website Manager Group Webinar Administrator Group Social Media Editor
Chief Executive Officer Chief Operating Officer Chief Financial Officer Chief Technology Officer
Executive Vice President Executive Chairman
REACHING THE STAFF
Kevin O’Grady Margaret Perry Susan May Scott Newhouse Tammy Renne Matt Holden
Rajeev Kapur Henry Allain Craig Rucker Erik A. Lindgren
Michael J. Valenti Jeffrey S. Klein
Staff may be reached via e-mail, telephone, fax or mail. A list of editors and contact information also is available online at www.securitytoday.com.
E-mail: To e-mail any member of the staff, please use the following form: FirstinitialLastname@1105media.com
Dallas Office (weekdays, 8:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. CT) Telephone (972) 687-6700; Fax (972) 687-6799 14901 Quorum Dr., Suite 425, Dallas, TX 75254 Corporate Office (weekdays, 8:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. PT) Telephone (818) 814-5200; Fax (818) 734-1522
9201 Oakdale Avenue, Suite 101, Chatsworth, CA 91311