Cloud surveillance: what everyone should know?
Much has been written about VSaaS , but, as a rule, all this information is rather scattered, and is often devoted to any one side of cloud-based video surveillance. As a result, users often get the impression that it seems that what they are talking about is understandable, but there is no complete picture and understanding of how this can be used.
Cloud surveillance is one of the most promising technologies along with video analytics. A rare expert will not announce video analytics and cloud video surveillance of The Next Big Thing video surveillance systems.
The global VSaaS market in 2015 reached $ 789.5 million according to the IHS report , which is about 5% of the total volume of the video surveillance market.
')
Despite such a modest result, almost all the world's largest manufacturers of video surveillance systems under the cut will try to figure out how to do this and why.
How high the expectations of the cloud video surveillance market can be understood by looking at one transaction. Google, through its subsidiary Nest Labs, acquired in 2014 the company Dropcam, specializing in cloud-based video surveillance, the amount of the transaction - 555 million US dollars. This is despite the fact that in 2014, the global VSaaS market amounted to 680 million US dollars according to IHS.
The term CCTV (Closed Circuit TeleVision) is traditionally considered to be synonymous with the Russian term - video surveillance systems, and literally translated as - closed-circuit television system.
It is cloud-based video surveillance that breaks this vicious contour, and expands the range of tasks that video surveillance can solve. Perhaps, it would be impossible to find an industry in which remote monitoring, read cloud-based video surveillance, would not find proper application.
Industrial enterprises , they need to monitor the work of equipment, technological processes, safety and quality of labor.
The state is already one of the largest customers of cloud video surveillance, in particular, the Moscow city government has already installed more than 128,000 surveillance cameras in the framework of the Information City project, and has launched the City Video Surveillance Portal. As part of testing which access to broadcast images from the city video surveillance cameras is provided to active users of the Portal of public services of the city of Moscow.
Trade , here video surveillance can be used very widely: from merchandising to business analytics stores.
Construction , demand as a security function of video surveillance, and the ability to control technological operations, remote monitoring of construction progress.
Transportation , great potential lies in solving logistics problems.
See how this potential is realized by the world leader in IP video surveillance Axis .
An important aspect also lies in the fact that you can monitor objects of video surveillance, both from a specially created monitoring center, and from your smartphone.
Both by the forces of its employees and by the forces of its clients, for example, by giving access to cameras on its website.
One can talk endlessly about the possibilities of cloud-based video surveillance, one thing is clear, cloud-based video surveillance is already a story about efficiency, not just about security.
In fact, these are any video surveillance systems that use the cloud infrastructure primarily for remote access to online viewing, to the video archive.
There are 4 main scenarios for the use of cloud infrastructure.
You can use as soon as the possibility of online viewing video from a surveillance camera, as well as the ability to record and view video archives from an SD card. SD cards as a rule are not included and are purchased separately.
Benefits
The lowest cost, the fastest deployment speed, a large selection of equipment from leading global manufacturers, minimal and easy setup.
disadvantages
Video archive may be lost, because The SD card is easily removed from the camcorder, including by attackers. The small size of the video archive. Low life SD cards.
Vendors
Axis , HiWatch , Dahua , Ezviz , D-link
Cost of
Single cost structure
You also have the opportunity to watch online video from CCTV cameras, plus the ability to view video archives.
The video archive in this case is located in the local video storage, i.e. in one local network with surveillance cameras. In one software application, you can access a network of geographically distributed video surveillance systems.
Benefits
Large selection of equipment from leading manufacturers, and therefore the best possible territorial representation.
Large video archive capacity. Access to the video archive is provided in the form of a professional software interface.
As a separate point, it is worth noting that cloud services support not only DVRs for IP cameras ( NVR ), but also hybrid, HD-TVI , HD-CVI and AHD DVRs, which will allow using cameras of almost any format, which in turn will greatly affect the cost video surveillance systems.
And network storages support work with all large and not so manufacturers of IP cameras. As a result, almost complete freedom in the choice of video cameras.
disadvantages
The DVR, and therefore the video archive may be lost, as a result of negligent treatment or actions of intruders, the high price of specialized hard drives for video surveillance.
Vendors
The list of vendors strongly intersects with the previous item, which in itself is not bad, because Having implemented video surveillance in the first minimum scenario, you always have the opportunity to improve the system by adding a video archive storage device to it.
HiWatch , Dahua , D-link , Devline
Cost of
Single cost structure
In this case, we can do without the video archive storage device, i.e. We can write videos directly to the cloud, or write a video archive to a local device (DVR, NAS, server), and send a data center from a local device. In all cases, to view the video archive, we will contact the data center through a professional programming interface.
Benefits
Security of storage and stability of access to the video archive is ensured by the highest degree of reliability of professional data centers. Unreachable for local storage.
Access to the video archive is provided in the form of a professional software interface for working with video archives.
The easiest and most reliable way to configure online broadcasting from the cameras on the site.
disadvantages
Limited availability of hardware - video transmission from the camera to the hosting is possible only with the vendor's firmware, or using a computer. Fixed costs for monthly fees.
Vendors
Cost of
Cost structure - one-time and fixed (subscription fee)
Prices for equipment and subscription fees are presented on vendor sites.
The key difference from the previous point is that if you want to view the video archive, the software client will access the local storage on the NVR or NAS, and only if the local video archive is lost, you will go to the cloud.
Benefits
The security of video archive storage is ensured by the highest degree of reliability of the data processing center.
disadvantages
High cost of video storage, low bandwidth communication channels. Fixed costs for monthly fees. Unlike the previous paragraph, access to viewing the video archive on the hosting is provided in the form of access to files, which complicates the work with it.
Vendors
Synology , Qnap , D-link
Cost of
Cost structure - one-time and fixed (subscription fee)
Integration with storage services
When considering backup tasks, the question of where to save the backup will certainly arise. Let us briefly consider the issue of integration with data storage services.
Do not forget:
Let's take a closer look at the most popular services, equipment, cite as an example, i.e. The list is much longer.
In fact, backup can be configured in almost any storage service, the choice of equipment is large, including quite exotic - Microsoft OneDrive, Google Cloud Storage ElephantDrive, Amazon Glacier, Microsoft Azure, HiDrive, hubiC, Megaphone MegaDisk, Backblaze B2, Baidu Cloud , Box, Amazon Drive.
Now, when the possibilities of cloud video surveillance neatly laid out on four shelves. A few important words about the benefits of cloud surveillance and its problems.
The possibilities of cloud-based video surveillance are not limited only to remote viewing of online and video archives, and allow not only to see, but also to hear, and even communicate in a voice on the air.
Connect to all video servers at the same time, view images online from different servers at the same client site
Plug n play
Most manufacturers strive to make their equipment available for connection and configuration even by inexperienced users. Someone succeeds to a greater extent, someone less, but all strive for it. In most cases, simply scan the QR code with the application installed on your mobile phone, and you can immediately enjoy the view.
Multiplatform
Android, iPhone OS, Windows Phone, Android TV, Apple TV, Mac OS, Windows, Linux - most vendors develop applications on at least the most popular platforms.
Here you can add and cross-browser.
Notifications
Push notifications, SMS and E-mail notifications in applications - all the power of notifications, not only prevents you from missing a critical event, but also eliminates the need for constant monitoring.
Already today we have not a small list of detected events. Motion detection in a selected area, sound detection by a microphone, detection of line intersection, area entry / exit, left or missing items.
You can also receive notifications about the disconnection of cameras or video archive storage devices, network breaks, IP address conflicts.
Access rights
Differentiation of access rights, standard software functionality for video surveillance. With the arrival of cloud-based video surveillance, it has acquired a new meaning, you can give all employees access to a certain group of cameras, or all visitors to your site, or only clients, to someone only viewing, to someone access to the archive.
For example, why not give all tenants access to the video surveillance system of a residential apartment building. Such a kind of wikinomics is obtained, and maybe this mass collaboration will not change everything , but something will definitely change for the better.
Integration
Already, video surveillance applications allow you to track security sensors, temperature and humidity sensors.
Now, even when I have about the opportunities and advantages, almost dizzy, the most talk about the problems and difficulties.
The sweetest and most replicated myth - cloud-based video surveillance allows you to do without capital expenditures.
Such a capacious term - capital expenditures, is used to designate a single video archive storage device, as a rule, this is a DVR.
To ensure that you can even imagine the absolute amount of capital expenditures, look at the prices of storage devices.
No other capital expenditures can be avoided even with the strongest desire.
Well, I'll add a cherry to the mythical cake - you can do without a local video archive storage device if you are going to use one camera to monitor the cat's life in your absence. More serious tasks will not allow you to do without a local video archive storage device.
What to do?
Do not believe marketing tales about the lack of capital expenditures. And with capital expenditures, cloud-based video surveillance does not lose its main advantages.
Probably this is the main factor constraining the development of cloud surveillance. According to the World Wide Web Foundation in the World, the average speed of the outgoing channel is 5 Mbit / s, entering 15 Mbit / s.
To record video from a single camera in HD resolution (1280 * 720) with a frequency of 25 frames per second, using the H.264 codec, with an average traffic volume, you will need a channel approximately equal to 3.2 Mbps.
And some prerequisites that would allow us to hope that in the near future the throughput will drastically increase, it seems not to be seen. Even Google Fiber has gone astray .
What to do?
Use H.264 + smart codecs from HikVision and Zipstream from Axis, they now allow you to reduce the bitrate to 70%.
Use H.265 codec, equipment that supports it a lot, as well as experts who believe that the time when it will become the new standard in video surveillance is not far off.
Using video cameras with integrated video analytics, they allow processing the un-decoded stream on the camera itself, and sending the processing results over the network.
Here you probably need to clarify that Natalya Kasperskaya speaks about the whole diversity of cloud services, but we are primarily interested in at least services related to video surveillance, as much as possible the cybersecurity of video surveillance systems in general.
The events of 2016 show that the situation in video surveillance is hardly different for the better.
Despite this, marketers of any cloud service declare security to the list of their advantages, although their lawyers in the user agreements that no one reads, strongly disagree with them.
That's it, plus or minus, is written in the user agreements of all companies offering cloud video surveillance services.
The situation is sad, of course. Just be ready. This is by no means a reason to abandon VSaaS.
Moreover, experts say that 2017 will be a year of awareness of the problems of cyber security. And as you know, to realize the problem is to solve it by 50%.
What to do?
Use HTTPS
An IP camera is capable of encrypting a video signal before sending it over the network, which prevents the possibility of unauthorized viewing or its substitution. The system can also be configured to authenticate the connection using encrypted certificates perceived by a particular network camera, thus eliminating the chance that someone will stick into the line.
Video archive encryption
The ability to encrypt the archive is currently quite widely used in video surveillance.
Ezviz, for example, encrypts video that records on an SD card, i.e. simply by removing the card, the attacker will not get access to the video archive.
And Synology will not only back up data in real time, minimizing risks in unforeseen situations, but also encrypt data using the AES-256 algorithm before downloading to the cloud.
Firmware upgrade
Modern realities are such that vulnerabilities are found in IP cameras of any vendors, and in our opinion, it’s not so much the fact of vulnerability that comes to the fore, but how companies quickly close them, releasing updated firmware.
And it is here that your reaction and the firmware update on your camera becomes especially important. And the firmware update is access to the camera, logins and passwords, and if there are dozens of cameras, and if there are hundreds.
Yes, and the process of tracking the release of new firmware versions is also one more task. And all together this is a titanic work.
Choosing a vendor, pay attention to how the work on tracking new firmware is organized, and updating them.
For example, IDIS Center monitoring software can monitor the release of new firmware, and automatically update the firmware (start the process manually, the update itself takes place automatically), including on remote cameras. Naturally only on cameras of own production .
Any video surveillance system that can be recognized as modern uses cloud services.
Far from any cloud surveillance system - modern, convenient, secure.
Working with cloud video surveillance systems, we realized that, despite the fact that cloud systems are not considered safe, the advantages and opportunities that they carry outweigh the disadvantages that come with them.
When it comes to security systems, we understand that the cost of a mistake is high as nowhere else, and yet we believe that the cost of inaction is higher.
Modern video surveillance system is your ability to see to hear and speak, the opportunity is in 1000 places at the same time. This is a competitive advantage.
Especially for those who are not ready to stay idle any more - typical solutions for IP video surveillance via the Internet , with equipment prices and our installation services.
Cloud surveillance is one of the most promising technologies along with video analytics. A rare expert will not announce video analytics and cloud video surveillance of The Next Big Thing video surveillance systems.
The global VSaaS market in 2015 reached $ 789.5 million according to the IHS report , which is about 5% of the total volume of the video surveillance market.
')
Despite such a modest result, almost all the world's largest manufacturers of video surveillance systems under the cut will try to figure out how to do this and why.
How high the expectations of the cloud video surveillance market can be understood by looking at one transaction. Google, through its subsidiary Nest Labs, acquired in 2014 the company Dropcam, specializing in cloud-based video surveillance, the amount of the transaction - 555 million US dollars. This is despite the fact that in 2014, the global VSaaS market amounted to 680 million US dollars according to IHS.
The term CCTV (Closed Circuit TeleVision) is traditionally considered to be synonymous with the Russian term - video surveillance systems, and literally translated as - closed-circuit television system.
It is cloud-based video surveillance that breaks this vicious contour, and expands the range of tasks that video surveillance can solve. Perhaps, it would be impossible to find an industry in which remote monitoring, read cloud-based video surveillance, would not find proper application.
Industrial enterprises , they need to monitor the work of equipment, technological processes, safety and quality of labor.
The state is already one of the largest customers of cloud video surveillance, in particular, the Moscow city government has already installed more than 128,000 surveillance cameras in the framework of the Information City project, and has launched the City Video Surveillance Portal. As part of testing which access to broadcast images from the city video surveillance cameras is provided to active users of the Portal of public services of the city of Moscow.
Trade , here video surveillance can be used very widely: from merchandising to business analytics stores.
Construction , demand as a security function of video surveillance, and the ability to control technological operations, remote monitoring of construction progress.
Transportation , great potential lies in solving logistics problems.
See how this potential is realized by the world leader in IP video surveillance Axis .
An important aspect also lies in the fact that you can monitor objects of video surveillance, both from a specially created monitoring center, and from your smartphone.
Both by the forces of its employees and by the forces of its clients, for example, by giving access to cameras on its website.
One can talk endlessly about the possibilities of cloud-based video surveillance, one thing is clear, cloud-based video surveillance is already a story about efficiency, not just about security.
What is cloud surveillance?
In fact, these are any video surveillance systems that use the cloud infrastructure primarily for remote access to online viewing, to the video archive.
There are 4 main scenarios for the use of cloud infrastructure.
1) Access to online viewing and video archive on the SD card of the camera
You can use as soon as the possibility of online viewing video from a surveillance camera, as well as the ability to record and view video archives from an SD card. SD cards as a rule are not included and are purchased separately.
Benefits
The lowest cost, the fastest deployment speed, a large selection of equipment from leading global manufacturers, minimal and easy setup.
disadvantages
Video archive may be lost, because The SD card is easily removed from the camcorder, including by attackers. The small size of the video archive. Low life SD cards.
Vendors
Axis , HiWatch , Dahua , Ezviz , D-link
Cost of
Single cost structure
- Cameras with cloud service - price from 3 070 rubles
- Cameras with indoor cloud service and with SD card support - price from 4 990 rubles
- Cameras with cloud service for the street with support for SD cards - prices from 4 990 rubles
2) Access to online viewing and video archive on NVR, NAS, server
You also have the opportunity to watch online video from CCTV cameras, plus the ability to view video archives.
The video archive in this case is located in the local video storage, i.e. in one local network with surveillance cameras. In one software application, you can access a network of geographically distributed video surveillance systems.
Benefits
Large selection of equipment from leading manufacturers, and therefore the best possible territorial representation.
Large video archive capacity. Access to the video archive is provided in the form of a professional software interface.
As a separate point, it is worth noting that cloud services support not only DVRs for IP cameras ( NVR ), but also hybrid, HD-TVI , HD-CVI and AHD DVRs, which will allow using cameras of almost any format, which in turn will greatly affect the cost video surveillance systems.
And network storages support work with all large and not so manufacturers of IP cameras. As a result, almost complete freedom in the choice of video cameras.
- IP Cameras - price from 3 840 rubles
- Analog CCTV cameras - price from 1 190 rubles
- HD-TVI security cameras - price from 1 485 rubles
- HD-CVI security cameras - price from 2 500 rubles
- AHD security cameras - price from 1 900 rubles
disadvantages
The DVR, and therefore the video archive may be lost, as a result of negligent treatment or actions of intruders, the high price of specialized hard drives for video surveillance.
Vendors
The list of vendors strongly intersects with the previous item, which in itself is not bad, because Having implemented video surveillance in the first minimum scenario, you always have the opportunity to improve the system by adding a video archive storage device to it.
HiWatch , Dahua , D-link , Devline
Cost of
Single cost structure
- DVRs with cloud services - price from 5 990 rubles
3) Access to online viewing and video archive in the data center (video hosting)
In this case, we can do without the video archive storage device, i.e. We can write videos directly to the cloud, or write a video archive to a local device (DVR, NAS, server), and send a data center from a local device. In all cases, to view the video archive, we will contact the data center through a professional programming interface.
Benefits
Security of storage and stability of access to the video archive is ensured by the highest degree of reliability of professional data centers. Unreachable for local storage.
Access to the video archive is provided in the form of a professional software interface for working with video archives.
The easiest and most reliable way to configure online broadcasting from the cameras on the site.
disadvantages
Limited availability of hardware - video transmission from the camera to the hosting is possible only with the vendor's firmware, or using a computer. Fixed costs for monthly fees.
Vendors
- First of all, these are companies, so let's say non-producing video surveillance cameras
This and Ivideon initially focused on video hosting, and the telecommunications company MGTS , and video surveillance software developers Trassir Cloud - Russian manufacturers of video surveillance systems
Beward presents its cloud service - CamDrive .
RVi - SpaceCam cloud service. - Major global manufacturers of video surveillance cameras providing video hosting services:
GeoVision with its cloud service MyGvCloud . The service provides several interesting and still rare opportunities. Stream from an IP camera directly to YouTube .
Applications for video surveillance on Android TV and Apple TV .
Axis c 2009 offers affiliate program AVHS , unfortunately not in Russia.
Cost of
Cost structure - one-time and fixed (subscription fee)
Prices for equipment and subscription fees are presented on vendor sites.
4) Access to online viewing and video archive on the NVR or NAS and backup the video archive to the cloud
The key difference from the previous point is that if you want to view the video archive, the software client will access the local storage on the NVR or NAS, and only if the local video archive is lost, you will go to the cloud.
Benefits
The security of video archive storage is ensured by the highest degree of reliability of the data processing center.
- Almost unlimited choice of IP cameras - price from 3 840 rubles
disadvantages
High cost of video storage, low bandwidth communication channels. Fixed costs for monthly fees. Unlike the previous paragraph, access to viewing the video archive on the hosting is provided in the form of access to files, which complicates the work with it.
Vendors
Synology , Qnap , D-link
Cost of
Cost structure - one-time and fixed (subscription fee)
Integration with storage services
When considering backup tasks, the question of where to save the backup will certainly arise. Let us briefly consider the issue of integration with data storage services.
Do not forget:
- Free file storage services generally limit the size of a single downloadable file.
- Network storage can be limited to the maximum size of stored data and dimensionless, for example, Amazon S3, a fee is charged for the amount of information actually stored.
- Equipment supporting copying to cloud storage services can operate in several modes:
Simple download - in this case, old data must be deleted manually, this is especially important for services that limit the maximum storage size.
Synchronization - video archive storage devices operate in a cyclic rewriting mode, the storage service synchronizes the entire volume.
Backup - creating a backup copy of data at a certain point in time, you can create and store an almost unlimited number of backups.
Let's take a closer look at the most popular services, equipment, cite as an example, i.e. The list is much longer.
- Google Drive , Qlync service to save video from compatible IP cameras directly to Google Drive, the list of compatible cameras is not great, but it has, for example, Zavio cameras well represented on the Russian market. On Habré there is an overview where the functionality of Zavio and Qlync is used to its fullest, not only for video surveillance.
- Dropbox , Network Video Recorders (NVR) Tantos allow you to send video to the cloud, for example - TSr-NV32251, TSr-NV16241, TSr-NV08241
- Yandex Disk , IP DVRs from Qnap - prices from 18,925 rubles
- Amazon S3 , Network Storage for Surveillance from Synology - price from 16 525 rubles
In fact, backup can be configured in almost any storage service, the choice of equipment is large, including quite exotic - Microsoft OneDrive, Google Cloud Storage ElephantDrive, Amazon Glacier, Microsoft Azure, HiDrive, hubiC, Megaphone MegaDisk, Backblaze B2, Baidu Cloud , Box, Amazon Drive.
Now, when the possibilities of cloud video surveillance neatly laid out on four shelves. A few important words about the benefits of cloud surveillance and its problems.
Benefits of Cloud Surveillance
The possibilities of cloud-based video surveillance are not limited only to remote viewing of online and video archives, and allow not only to see, but also to hear, and even communicate in a voice on the air.
Connect to all video servers at the same time, view images online from different servers at the same client site
Plug n play
Most manufacturers strive to make their equipment available for connection and configuration even by inexperienced users. Someone succeeds to a greater extent, someone less, but all strive for it. In most cases, simply scan the QR code with the application installed on your mobile phone, and you can immediately enjoy the view.
Multiplatform
Android, iPhone OS, Windows Phone, Android TV, Apple TV, Mac OS, Windows, Linux - most vendors develop applications on at least the most popular platforms.
Here you can add and cross-browser.
Notifications
Push notifications, SMS and E-mail notifications in applications - all the power of notifications, not only prevents you from missing a critical event, but also eliminates the need for constant monitoring.
Already today we have not a small list of detected events. Motion detection in a selected area, sound detection by a microphone, detection of line intersection, area entry / exit, left or missing items.
You can also receive notifications about the disconnection of cameras or video archive storage devices, network breaks, IP address conflicts.
Access rights
Differentiation of access rights, standard software functionality for video surveillance. With the arrival of cloud-based video surveillance, it has acquired a new meaning, you can give all employees access to a certain group of cameras, or all visitors to your site, or only clients, to someone only viewing, to someone access to the archive.
For example, why not give all tenants access to the video surveillance system of a residential apartment building. Such a kind of wikinomics is obtained, and maybe this mass collaboration will not change everything , but something will definitely change for the better.
Integration
Already, video surveillance applications allow you to track security sensors, temperature and humidity sensors.
Cloud Surveillance Issues
Now, even when I have about the opportunities and advantages, almost dizzy, the most talk about the problems and difficulties.
Myths
The sweetest and most replicated myth - cloud-based video surveillance allows you to do without capital expenditures.
Such a capacious term - capital expenditures, is used to designate a single video archive storage device, as a rule, this is a DVR.
To ensure that you can even imagine the absolute amount of capital expenditures, look at the prices of storage devices.
- DVRs - price from 2 590 rubles
- Network Storage - price from 10 454 rubles
No other capital expenditures can be avoided even with the strongest desire.
Well, I'll add a cherry to the mythical cake - you can do without a local video archive storage device if you are going to use one camera to monitor the cat's life in your absence. More serious tasks will not allow you to do without a local video archive storage device.
What to do?
Do not believe marketing tales about the lack of capital expenditures. And with capital expenditures, cloud-based video surveillance does not lose its main advantages.
Channels of connection
Probably this is the main factor constraining the development of cloud surveillance. According to the World Wide Web Foundation in the World, the average speed of the outgoing channel is 5 Mbit / s, entering 15 Mbit / s.
To record video from a single camera in HD resolution (1280 * 720) with a frequency of 25 frames per second, using the H.264 codec, with an average traffic volume, you will need a channel approximately equal to 3.2 Mbps.
And some prerequisites that would allow us to hope that in the near future the throughput will drastically increase, it seems not to be seen. Even Google Fiber has gone astray .
What to do?
Use H.264 + smart codecs from HikVision and Zipstream from Axis, they now allow you to reduce the bitrate to 70%.
- Security cameras with Zipstream support - price from 11 737 rubles
- Surveillance cameras with H.264 + support - price from 10 990 rubles
Use H.265 codec, equipment that supports it a lot, as well as experts who believe that the time when it will become the new standard in video surveillance is not far off.
- Surveillance cameras with H.265 support - price from 15 300 rubles
Using video cameras with integrated video analytics, they allow processing the un-decoded stream on the camera itself, and sending the processing results over the network.
- Surveillance cameras with integrated video analytics - price from 7 990 rubles
Security
It is cloud storage services that become the leading information leakage channel, said Natalia Kasperskaya, the general director of the company, the developer of integrated information security solutions for InfoWatch. According to TASS, she said this at the Skolkovo Cyberday conference. According to her, over the past year, 50% of information leakage occurred through cloud services.
Here you probably need to clarify that Natalya Kasperskaya speaks about the whole diversity of cloud services, but we are primarily interested in at least services related to video surveillance, as much as possible the cybersecurity of video surveillance systems in general.
The events of 2016 show that the situation in video surveillance is hardly different for the better.
- The Mirai botnet, of which IP cameras were part, led to the disruption of a significant part of the global Internet
- Critical vulnerability discovered in HikVision global cloud servers
- Vulnerabilities in the security system of cameras are detected even by such giants as Axis
Despite this, marketers of any cloud service declare security to the list of their advantages, although their lawyers in the user agreements that no one reads, strongly disagree with them.
The company cannot and does not guarantee that the use of software, website, services or products is absolutely safe.
That's it, plus or minus, is written in the user agreements of all companies offering cloud video surveillance services.
The situation is sad, of course. Just be ready. This is by no means a reason to abandon VSaaS.
Moreover, experts say that 2017 will be a year of awareness of the problems of cyber security. And as you know, to realize the problem is to solve it by 50%.
What to do?
Use HTTPS
An IP camera is capable of encrypting a video signal before sending it over the network, which prevents the possibility of unauthorized viewing or its substitution. The system can also be configured to authenticate the connection using encrypted certificates perceived by a particular network camera, thus eliminating the chance that someone will stick into the line.
- Surveillance cameras with HTTPS support - price from 6 000 rubles
Video archive encryption
The ability to encrypt the archive is currently quite widely used in video surveillance.
Ezviz, for example, encrypts video that records on an SD card, i.e. simply by removing the card, the attacker will not get access to the video archive.
And Synology will not only back up data in real time, minimizing risks in unforeseen situations, but also encrypt data using the AES-256 algorithm before downloading to the cloud.
Firmware upgrade
Modern realities are such that vulnerabilities are found in IP cameras of any vendors, and in our opinion, it’s not so much the fact of vulnerability that comes to the fore, but how companies quickly close them, releasing updated firmware.
And it is here that your reaction and the firmware update on your camera becomes especially important. And the firmware update is access to the camera, logins and passwords, and if there are dozens of cameras, and if there are hundreds.
Yes, and the process of tracking the release of new firmware versions is also one more task. And all together this is a titanic work.
Choosing a vendor, pay attention to how the work on tracking new firmware is organized, and updating them.
For example, IDIS Center monitoring software can monitor the release of new firmware, and automatically update the firmware (start the process manually, the update itself takes place automatically), including on remote cameras. Naturally only on cameras of own production .
findings
Any video surveillance system that can be recognized as modern uses cloud services.
Far from any cloud surveillance system - modern, convenient, secure.
Working with cloud video surveillance systems, we realized that, despite the fact that cloud systems are not considered safe, the advantages and opportunities that they carry outweigh the disadvantages that come with them.
When it comes to security systems, we understand that the cost of a mistake is high as nowhere else, and yet we believe that the cost of inaction is higher.
Modern video surveillance system is your ability to see to hear and speak, the opportunity is in 1000 places at the same time. This is a competitive advantage.
Especially for those who are not ready to stay idle any more - typical solutions for IP video surveillance via the Internet , with equipment prices and our installation services.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/320790/
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