Network security must keep up with the rise in critical video surveillance systems

To keep up with the challenges imposed by these concerns and regulations, a reliable, always-on and secure network capable of delivering quality high-resolution videos is imperative to keep organisations safe.

The Middle East is one of the fastest-growing markets for video surveillance systems. Research firm MarketsandMarkets reports that a big driver for the increasing use of video surveillance systems globally is in large part due to the increasing concerns for public safety and security, prompting deployment at airports, malls, schools, office buildings, public places and so on.

Nevertheless, the market dynamics are rapidly changing with security cameras being more and more integrated with the IoT architecture to solve for business use cases alongside security use cases, while artificial intelligence continues to enable security capabilities related to behaviours and object recognition that have never been possible before. These dynamics are raising the criticality of the video surveillance systems and consequently the criticality of the network infrastructure that interconnects the ecosystem together.

Rabih Itani said, “Gone are the days, where the video surveillance networks get the least attention during the design phase, but ironically the first to blame when the video streaming disconnects or suffers jitter or hackers get through. Organisations are beginning to realise the importance of connecting their video surveillance systems to secure and future-proof networks that they can simply trust.”

“Video surveillance cameras, which are essentially IoT devices, are a major target themselves for cybercriminals or are used by them as an easy door to access weakly secured networks. This pushes networks to move from being merely a connectivity provider for the cameras, to be first-line defenders,” Itani added.