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July 26, 2022

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Home Security Market Thrives Despite Fears of False Alarms By Techagents

According to a new report from Parks Associates, the home security systems market continues to grow despite concerns about false alerts.

The report noted that security system ownership is at an all-time high in many areas, with more than a third of US broadband households (36%) having home security systems and 41% of multi-dwelling unit managers with systems in their common areas. are installed. and parking garage.

“The market was stagnant, making about 20% penetration for decades,” said Yaniv Amir, president of Essence USA, which is part of the Essence Group, a global technology company.

“Over the past five to seven years, we’ve seen significant growth as security has become a part of home automation,” he told TechNewsWorld. “It reached the mid-thirties.”

The report noted that the past several years have been good for selling systems in the small and medium business market. With the COVID-19 pandemic, it explained that the spring and summer of 2020 were characterized by social and political unrest, resulting in increased concerns about safety and security.

false alert problem

According to the report, despite promising growth, accurate detection of security threats remains a problem. False alarms are a threat to user satisfaction with their systems, it maintained, with two out of three security system owners paying fines for false alarms with an average cost of about $150.

“In America, false alarms are a really big deal,” Amir said. “It causes a lot of people to turn off their alarm systems, making them nonfunctional.”

He said one way to avoid false alarms is to use artificial intelligence to trigger the alarm from a single detector. “If you have multiple sensors, an intruder is likely to hit more than one sensor, so an alert from a single sensor is likely to be a false alert,” he explained.

“More advanced systems can use facial recognition to determine whether a face belongs to someone living in a household,” he said. “More advanced technologies can also identify unusual behavior – for example the owner of the house was being attacked.”

Chris White, senior analyst at Parks, told TechNewsWorld that effective monitoring is the best way to avoid false alarms. In addition, he continued, new video and audio analytics will help.

“Device makers are increasingly using AI powered by the cloud or more powerful EDGE to analyze video and audio data collected by cameras and microphones around the residence and verify that the detected event Instead of a pet walking on the porch or branch, there is a danger in the strong wind,” he said.

AI to the rescue

Believing that better analysis will help eliminate false alerts, Mark N. Venna, president and principal analyst at SmartTech Research in San Jose, Calif., said AI will ultimately do the best job of reducing false alerts. “This would allow the cameras to ‘learn’ about a homeowner’s specific environment,” he explained.

“This technology may be integrated at the device level, but it may also surface in Wi-Fi 6e or Wi-Fi 7e routers which can contribute by dramatically reducing latency along with improved bandwidth,” They said.

IDC senior analyst Adam Wright said vendors can do things to improve smart security systems, but it is the user’s responsibility to configure the system appropriately.

“This is one of the drawbacks of adopting a do-it-yourself approach to building a home security system – setting up, setting up and configuring all the necessary rules and sequences can be cumbersome,” he told TechNewsWorld.

“An advantage of professional installers is that they can customize the security solution to the needs of the home and help the user set up the correct configuration to ensure that the system works as intended and avoid false alerts and Minimizes other disruptions,” he said.

integration headache

False warnings aren’t the only problem with home security systems. “Reliable connectivity is a big limitation,” argued Wright. Often network-connected devices become unresponsive or offline, and troubleshooting isn’t always straightforward or easy.

“Furthermore,” he added, “integration with third-party devices remains problematic. For example, dragging a video feed onto a smart display can cause a number of errors and delays that can disrupt the experience.”

Vena agreed that it’s difficult to integrate multiple brands of appliances with many existing home security systems.

“Some of the better home security systems, though not all, do a fair job of integrating devices from different manufacturers, playing an agnostic role,” he said, “but user frustrations can be high when they determine a device that needs to be installed.” He has bought. Do not operate within the home security system’s ecosystem or integrate with your Master Control app.”

He sees future security systems departing from the use of video. “I’m most optimistic about ‘Wi-Fi Sensing’ technology, which allows every Wi-Fi device in your home to use the Wi-Fi signal to determine fall detection, break-ins, and so forth. is,” he observed.

“Acoustic sensing technology can also help detect glass breaks or screams that can be used to send alerts,” he said. “These latter capabilities also have privacy benefits because they don’t use video to make these determinations, something that’s as appealing as an indoor sensor.”

DIY Monitoring

The Parks report also noted that an important new factor in the security sector is the increase in self-monitoring security systems. These self-monitoring systems send alerts to users’ phones for a low monthly fee.

“Self-monitoring has the benefit of lower monthly costs, but it also requires the homeowner to act on alert and contact authorities if a break-in or intruder is detected,” Venna said. Vena said. “It’s a significant disadvantage, because most people don’t want or can’t have their homes monitored.”

Wright said one of the biggest benefits of self-monitoring is the peace of mind that the system won’t falsely trigger a response from emergency services, which can be disruptive or costly.

“However, the disadvantage is if an alert or alarm goes undetected,” he continued. “For example, if the user is not near their phone at all times, or there is a connectivity issue with the phone that does not receive alerts. Then the incident will go unanswered which could mean that emergency services are not dispatched in time.” Huh. “

According to the report, 33% of self-monitoring security system owners told park researchers that they intended to switch to a professional monitoring service because they were not available when a security incident occurred, and that they could not take appropriate action.

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Information Technology

Insecure machine identity latest enterprise IT security concern By Techagents

A new report from a privileged management firm (PAM) warns that IT security is getting worse as corporations become stuck deciding what to do and what it will cost.

Delinea, formerly Thycotic and Centrify, on Tuesday released research based on 2,100 security decision makers internationally, revealing that 84% of organizations have experienced an identity-related security breach in the past 18 months.

This revelation comes as enterprises are grappling with expanding entry points and more frequent and advanced attack methods from cybercriminals. It also highlights the gap between the perceived and actual effectiveness of security strategies. Despite the high percentage of accepted breaches, 40% of respondents believe they have the right strategy.

Several studies found that credentials are the most common attack vector. Delinia wanted to know what IT security leaders were doing to reduce the risk of attack. This study focused on learning about the adoption of privileged access management by organizations as a security strategy.

Key findings of the report include:

  • 60% of IT security decision-makers have been put off working on an IT security strategy due to multiple concerns;
  • Identity security is a priority for security teams, but 63% believe it is not understood by executive leaders;
  • 75% of organizations will fail to protect privileged identities because they refuse to receive the support they need.

ID security is a priority, but board purchases are critical

Leaving behind corporate commitment to actually take action is a growing policy many executives are following in relation to IT efforts to provide better breach prevention.

Many organizations are hungry to make change, but three quarters (75%) of IT and security professionals believe that promises of change will fail to protect privileged identities due to a lack of corporate support, according to researchers. .

The report noted that 90% of the respondents said that their organizations fully recognize the importance of identity security in enabling them to achieve their business goals. Nearly the same percentage (87%) said it was one of the most important security priorities for the next 12 months.

However, a lack of budget commitment and executive alignment resulted in a constant stall on improving IT security. Some 63% of respondents said that their company’s board still does not fully understand identity security and its role in enabling better business operations.

Chief Security Scientist and Advisor CISO Joseph Carson said, “While the importance of identity security is acknowledged by business leaders, most security teams will not receive the support and budget they need to provide critical security controls and resources to mitigate key risks.” A solution is needed.” in Delinia.

“This means that most organizations will be deprived of protecting privileges, leaving them vulnerable to cybercriminals searching for and abusing privileged accounts,” he said.

Lack of policies puts machine ID at great risk

Despite the good intentions of corporate leaders, companies have a long road ahead when it comes to protecting privileged identities and access. According to the report, less than half (44%) of organizations surveyed have implemented ongoing security policies and procedures for privileged access management.

These missing security protections include password rotation or approval, time-based or context-based security, and privileged behavior monitoring such as recording and auditing. Even more worrying, more than half (52%) of all respondents allow privileged users to access sensitive systems and data without the need for multifactor authentication (MFA).

Another alarming lapse has come to the fore in the research. Privileged identities include humans, such as domain and local administrators. It also includes non-humans, such as service accounts, application accounts, codes, and other types of machine identities that automatically connect to and share privileged information.

However, only 44% of organizations manage and secure machine identities. The majority leave them open and come under attack.

Graph: Delinea benchmarking security gaps and privileged access

Source: Delinia Global Survey of Cyber ​​Security Leaders

Cybercriminals look for the weakest link, Carson noted. Ignoring ‘non-human’ identities – especially when these are growing at a faster rate than human users – greatly increases the risk of privilege-based identity attacks.

“When attackers target machine and application identities, they can easily eavesdrop,” he told TechNewsWorld.

They move around the network to determine the best place to strike and inflict the most damage. He advised that organizations need to ensure that machine identity is incorporated into their security strategies and follow best practices when it comes to protecting all of their IT ‘superuser’ accounts, which could be compromised if , then the entire business could be put on hold, he advised.

The security gap is widening

Perhaps the most important finding from this latest research is that the security gap continues to widen. Many organizations are on the right track to secure and reduce cyber risk for business. They face the challenge that there still exist large security gaps for attackers to gain. This includes securing a privileged identity.

An attacker only needs to find a privileged account. When businesses still have many privileged identities left vulnerable, such as application and machine identities, attackers will continue to exploit and influence businesses’ operations in exchange for ransom payments.

The good news is that organizations realize the high priority of protecting privileged identities. The sad news is that many privileged identities are still exposed because it is simply not enough to secure a human privileged identity, Carson explained.

Not only is the security gap widening between business and attackers but also the security gap between IT leaders and business executives. While this is improving in some industries, the problem still exists.

“Until we address the challenge of communicating the importance of cyber security to the executive board and business, IT leaders will continue to struggle to obtain the resources and budget needed to close the security gap,” he said. warned.

cloud whack-a-mole

One of the main challenges to achieving identity is that mobility and the identity of the cloud environment are everywhere. According to Carson, this increases the complexity of securing identity.

Businesses are still trying to secure them with the current security technologies they already have in place today. But this results in many security gaps and limitations. He said some businesses fall short even by trying to check security identity with simple password managers.

“However, this still means relying on business users to make good security decisions. To secure identities, you must first have a good strategy and plan in place. This means knowing the types of privileged identities that exist in business. Understanding and using security technology that is designed to find and protect them,” he concluded.

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