Data Centre Security: Protecting Infrastructure from Physical and Cyber Threats

Node4 partners with Elastio to strengthen ransomware defences

Node4, a cloud-led digital transformation Managed Services Provider (MSP), has announced a strategic partnership with cybersecurity company, Elastio. This collaboration is set to provide Node4 customers with enhanced protection against ransomware by ensuring the integrity of Veeam recovery points, minimising post-attack data loss and downtime. Backups are crucial for protecting against ransomware, but modern threats can infiltrate and hide within data without being detected. This can lead businesses to inadvertently back up compromised data, which leaves them vulnerable when they need to recover from an attack. Node4 and Elastio’s partnership addresses this issue by allowing Node4 clients to continuously check the integrity of their Veeam backups. This ensures any breaches are detected early and guarantees that recovery can occur from clean, uncompromised data. Najaf Husain, CEO of Elastio, comments, "Ransomware is a scourge that is not going away any time soon, and we're seeing increasingly sophisticated threat actors use tactics to compromise backups. The new standard has to be for businesses to not only be prepared for disaster recovery, but for cyber recovery. That means ensuring that your backups are clean and recoverable. We are excited to be working with Node4 to bring our anti-ransomware for backups technology to their clients so that they can be ransomware ready. Elastio’s RansomwareIQ AI/ML engine performs deep file-level inspections on Veeam backups, detecting ransomware encryption that bypasses other solutions with 99.99% accuracy. In the event of an attack, it automatically directs you to a clean recovery point to streamline business continuity. Mark Skelton, Chief Technology & Strategy Officer at Node4, emphasises the importance of robust cybersecurity measures, stating, “In today’s digital age, effective and reliable backups are crucial for business continuity. Our partnership with Elastio ensures that our clients not only have state-of-the-art backup solutions, but also the assurance that these backups are uncompromised by ransomware. We are committed to empowering our clients to be resilient and ready in the face of evolving cyber threats.” Node4’s collaboration with Elastio also complements its N4Backup Veeam Cloud Connect solution, enhancing its offerings to businesses utilising Veeam Backup and Recovery software. This strategic initiative is part of Node4’s ongoing commitment to providing comprehensive, end-to-end services that support UK businesses in their transition to secure, cloud-based infrastructures. By integrating Elastio’s anti-ransomware technology, Node4 not only fortifies its defence mechanisms, but also ensures its clients are equipped with the necessary tools for both disaster recovery and cyber recovery. For more from Node4, click here.

Kiteworks Private Content Network vision validated by investment

Kiteworks, a provider of secure content communications, has announced a $450 million (£348m) growth-equity investment from global software investors, Insight Partners and Sixth Street Growth. The investment, a partial liquidity event, will reportedly strengthen Kiteworks’ market position in secure data transfer and collaboration as the only security platform authorised by FedRAMP to provide unified support for file sharing, managed file transfer, and email data communications to meet a broad range of global compliance requirements.Jonathan Yaron, CEO and Chairman of Kiteworks, states, “This minority stake investment affirms Kiteworks’ role in providing a revolutionary solution to the world’s growing challenge of tracking and controlling sensitive data in motion and use. With recent ground-breaking innovations such as Next-Gen Digital Rights Management, combined with the growing industry and regulatory focus on tracking and controlling the data layer, the road to realising our vision has never been clearer. We’re excited to accelerate our growth and continue innovating to meet the evolving needs of our customers with the support of Insight Partners and Sixth Street Growth.”The new investment comes as organisations face an expanding cybersecurity risk due to complex third-party ecosystems and an increasingly stringent compliance landscape. Cybercriminals are targeting sensitive content in growing numbers, with supply chains offering significant opportunities for malicious actors. Meanwhile, compliance regulations such as CMMC, NIS 2, and HIPAA demand robust data protection measures.The Kiteworks PCN addresses critical cybersecurity challenges facing organisations worldwide by unifying the primary content communication channels of file share, file transfer, managed file transfer, email, APIs, and web forms into a dedicated secure platform. The investment from Insight Partners and Sixth Street Growth not only validates the company’s vision, but also signals a broader recognition of the essential role that secure content communication plays in today’s digital landscape. As cyber threats evolve and regulatory environments become more complex, Kiteworks stands ready to help organisations worldwide safeguard their most valuable digital assets.Eoin Duane, Managing Director at Insight Partners, comments, “We were immediately impressed by Kiteworks’ exceptional growth and innovative approach to securing content communications. In today’s complex digital landscape, Kiteworks addresses a critical market need and stands out as a leader in providing effective solutions that significantly improve risk management. We’re excited to partner with the Kiteworks team as they continue to help shape the future of cybersecurity.Alex Katz, Managing Director at Sixth Street Growth, adds, “Jonathan and the Kiteworks team are proven innovators and have architected a platform which is purpose-built to meet the challenges of the most secure and compliance-sensitive organisations. We’re excited to support their continued success and help Kiteworks capitalise on the significant market opportunities ahead.”Eoin Duane and Peter Sobiloff from Insight Partners and Alex Katz from Sixth Street will join the Kiteworks board of directors. For more from Kiteworks, click here.

DDoS attacks have surged by 106%, data reveals

Zayo Group, a global communications infrastructure provider, has released its latest bi-annual Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Insights Report, which includes details of a 106% increase in attack frequency from H2 2023. The report also found that an average DDoS attack now lasts 45 minutes - an 18% increase from this time last year - costing unprotected organisations approximately $270,000 (£210,000) per attack at an average rate of $6,000 (£4,700) per minute. It takes very little time, expertise or investment to run a DDoS attack, and with the AI boom, bot-based attacks have made it even easier to attack more often, in a more sustained manner, and with more requests per second. Beyond intensifying frequency and duration, AI is also driving the increased pervasiveness of DDoS attacks across many industries. In fact, for the first time in this report’s history, HR and staffing, legal and consulting, and transportation firms surfaced as victims of the top 10% of the largest DDoS attacks seen. Tema Hassan, Senior Product Manager at Zayo Europe, says, “Recent trends in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks in Europe reveal a significant escalation in both frequency and sophistication. The number of attacks has surged, driven largely by geopolitical conflicts. This has led to an increase in attacks on critical sectors like financial services, telecommunications, and internet service providers, which are vital to national infrastructure. “New attack techniques, such as those exploiting vulnerabilities in modern web protocols like HTTP/2, have emerged, adding complexity to the threat landscape. Traditional methods like DNS-based attacks also remain prevalent and have grown in scale. In response, countries within Europe are implementing stricter cybersecurity regulations to bolster defence mechanisms against these evolving threats.” Max Clauson, SVP of Network Connectivity at Zayo, adds, “As we predicted last year, DDoS attacks in the age of AI have become more persistent and frequent across all industries, and our latest report confirms this heightened level as the new norm. What’s worse, if this trend continues, we expect attacks could increase another 24% by the end of the year. The only way to fight back is to add protection to your tech stack. When your business is protected, attackers have no other option but to move on to find an easier target.” Key findings by industry: • Telecommunications companies are still the most-targeted industry, making up 57% of all attacks. Other familiar industries experiencing the most frequent attacks include education (19%), manufacturing (5%), and cloud/SaaS (5%).• Manufacturing has replaced retail as the industry facing the largest DDoS attacks, followed by healthcare (up 128.5% compared to H1 2023). Not only did this industry experience a 308% increase in attack duration from 2023 to 2024, these companies also suffered a 200% increase in DDoS attack size.• Government entities continued to be the victims of the longest duration attacks, with an average attack time of over six hours. This is up 41% from the H1 2023. For nearly 30 years, DDoS attacks have been effective and the introduction of AI to deploy and elevate these attacks is only allowing them to evolve, growing more powerful, subversive, and frequent. Zayo says that every business must understand that it is a target, regardless of industry or size. The financial and reputational damage caused by DDoS attacks can be devastating, leading to significant revenue losses and long-term harm to brand trust. Additionally, the cost of mitigating attacks and restoring services is substantial, draining resources that could be better spent on growth and innovation. The only fighting chance businesses have is to implement a proper network protection strategy, Zayo tells us. To view the full report and learn more about how Zayo can help protect your business from cyber attacks, click here. For more from Zayo, click here.

Keepit platform named winner at the 2024 SaaS Awards

Keepit, a global provider of a comprehensive cloud backup and recovery platform, has announced its success in the 2024 Cloud SaaS Awards programme by being named a winner in the 'Best Use of SaaS in a Cloud Ecosystem' category. The company was also a finalist in the 'Best Security Innovation in a SaaS Product (SME)' and 'Best Security Innovation in a SaaS Product (Enterprise)' categories. A long-established awards programme spanning 56 categories, The SaaS Awards recognises the leading innovations and applications of software-as-a-service solutions across a wide range of use cases and sectors. The programme received entries from organisations worldwide, including North America, across Europe, and APAC. Michele Hayes, CMO at Keepit, comments, “The Keepit platform is a must for companies looking to ensure cyber resiliency. We are honoured to have been named as a winner at the 2024 SaaS Awards. This, alongside the slew of other recent accolades, underscores our cloud native roots and commitment to providing our customers with best-in-class data protection.” James Williams, CEO of The Cloud Awards, adds, “We’re thrilled to reveal the winners of the 2024 SaaS Awards after three intense rounds of judging. It’s been an outstanding edition of the awards this year, and the team and I would like to thank all those organisations that entered. “Keepit has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to innovation and excellence and is a more than deserving winner of Best Use of SaaS in a Cloud Ecosystem. The calibre of the finalists this year was particularly high, which is a testament to this wonderful achievement. “A huge congratulations to Keepit, and to all of 2024’s winners. We are extremely excited to see how they continue to drive the industry forwards in the coming years.” Secure by design, the Keepit cloud is owned and run by Keepit. Customer data is kept in a separate, dedicated infrastructure, with the backed-up data stored fully isolated from the SaaS vendor’s cloud. With a user-friendly interface, robust data security, and the ability to adapt to the user's cloud environment, Keepit ensures data is always accessible and protected. For more from Keepit, click here.

Veeam brings data resilience to Microsoft 365 users

Veeam Software, the data resilience specialist, has announced the next generation of Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft 365 with the new capabilities offered by Microsoft 365 Backup Storage. Veeam Data Cloud, which is built on Microsoft Azure, provides backup-as-a-service (BaaS) for Microsoft 365, enabling data resilience and leveraging powerful data protection and security technology within a simple, seamless user experience. As a launch partner for Microsoft 365 Backup Storage, Veeam is leveraging the latest Microsoft technology with Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft 365 to deliver lightning-fast backup and recovery capabilities for large Microsoft 365 environments, ensuring organisations protect critical data against cyberattacks and data loss scenarios, further enabling complete data resiliency. This solution further strengthens Veeam’s position in protecting Microsoft 365 users, with over 21 million users already under Veeam's protection. John Jester, Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) at Veeam, comments, “One of the benefits of our multi-year strategic partnership with Microsoft is rapidly bringing new advances to our joint customers and partners. This new release combines the benefits of Veeam’s industry-leading technology – in both data protection and ransomware recovery – with the latest Microsoft 365 data resilience capabilities introduced by Microsoft, and extends them to even more customers using Microsoft 365. “In addition, we’re making great progress in our joint innovation bringing the power and insights of Microsoft Copilot to the Veeam product family. As the leader in Microsoft 365 protection with over 21 million users protected, Veeam together with Microsoft provides the ultimate Microsoft 365 backup and recovery solution and sets the standard for how enterprises manage data protection.” Microsoft's new backup technology is seamlessly embedded inside Veeam's backup service for Microsoft 365, combining the new high-speed backup and recovery capabilities with Veeam's established and unmatched restore and eDiscovery options tailored to meet any potential data loss and compliance scenario. This powerful fusion, where speed and scale meet control and flexibility, empowers organisations with the best of both worlds. Zach Rosenfield, Director of PM for Collaborative Apps and Platforms at Microsoft, comments, "The collaboration with Veeam is an advancement in assisting our shared clients with quick recovery after cyber incidents. We look forward to deepening our collaboration to improve data protection for users." Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft 365 with Microsoft 365 Backup Storage delivers: • Speed and scale: This latest offering from Veeam and Microsoft is designed to manage large volumes of data seamlessly, with the ability to protect and restore 100+ TBs of data or 10,000-plus objects. With this advanced solution, what used to take weeks or months is now accomplished within hours. • Disaster recovery: This new solution offers bulk restores at scale, ensuring increased resilience to ransomware or malware attacks and minimising downtime. Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft 365 with Microsoft 365 Backup Storage empowers organisations to bounce back quickly from any data loss scenario. Organisations no longer have to choose between paying a ransom or enduring weeks or months of data restoration. • Future readiness: As part of a new five-year strategic partnership, Veeam is developing future solutions with Microsoft integrating Microsoft Copilot and Azure AI services to enhance data protection for Microsoft 365 and Azure. These solutions will simplify operations, automate administrative tasks, and allow organisations to allocate resources to business-critical initiatives, ensuring they stay ahead in a rapidly changing digital landscape. “As adoption of Microsoft 365 increases, the volume and criticality of their associated data sets is also growing,” says Krista Macomber, Research Director at The Futurum Group. “Without the proper data protection solution, this can lead to highly time-consuming, cumbersome backup processes - ultimately resulting in delayed, missed, or incomplete backups. Equally an issue, it can also lead to slow and incomplete recovery processes. This cannot be afforded, especially given the need for resiliency against the onslaught of cyberattacks. Veeam is directly addressing these challenges with the most recent update to its Microsoft 365 backup capabilities.” Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft 365 with Microsoft 365 Backup Storage will be available in early August. Three packaging options (Express, Flex, and Premium) are available to accommodate Veeam and Microsoft customers. For more from Veeam, click here.

DTX + UCX London is back for 2024

DTX London, the UK’s leading digital transformation event, has announced its doors will open on 2-3 October 2024, for what is set to be one of the most exciting technology exhibitions of the year. To maximise the experience, DTX will be co-located with Unified Communications EXPO (UCX) - the UK’s biggest show for colleague and customer communications, plus Digital Commerce Expo - which explores the technologies revolutionising customer experience. DTX + UCX will welcome decision makers from the biggest brands in the UK, including Lloyds, BT, Microsoft, DWP, Booking.com and Deliveroo. These forward-thinking organisations will take centre stage, offering insights into how they are harnessing technology and data to drive forward their digital agendas whilst putting trust and security at the heart. The event will be a hotspot to get involved in and learn about today’s most important digital conversations, with exclusive panels, workshops, technical deep-dives and community meetups. Whether it’s AI, cyber security, DevOps or cloud, DTX provides insights across the entire technology stack, with UCX covering unified communications and collaboration tools for both colleague and customer experience. The events combined will provide visitors with ideas, case studies and unrivalled knowledge from those at the forefront of digital transformation - all under one roof. The event has been designed around today’s most topical issues and its audience will gain unique insight around how to: • Master the art of continuous reinvention to keep up with tech advancements• Modernise IT tool stacks, maximise legacy infrastructure and reduce tech debt• Cut through the noise and identify the AI use cases for your business• Architect your way to next-gen software engineering and delivery whilst improving DevX• Establish responsible frameworks for data and AI through effective governance and architecture• Build a secure ecosystem that is responsive to today’s threat landscape• Educate and empower colleagues with the latest communications and collaboration tools• Meet changing customer demands for interaction and engagement• Streamline your IT service desk for faster and more intuitive responses• Attract and retain the best and diverse tech talent DTX + UCX helps organisations stay ahead of the competition, offering insight to help them rethink their current operational strategies, reimagine their future possibilities and realise their potential for change. Tackling this year’s event theme – 'The Road to Reinvention' – DTX + UCX will also present a series of case studies, roundtables, hacks, debates, and workshops. To guarantee a front-row seat and join the game-changers and tech pioneers at this year’s most exciting digital event, get your free pass by clicking here.

The US States most at risk of cyberattacks

Global cybercrime costs are projected to soar from $9.22 trillion (£7.14 trillion) in 2024 to $13.82 trillion (£10.7 trillion) by 2028, research has revealed. In the United States alone, these costs are forecasted to exceed $452 billion in 2024. Alarmingly, in 2023, three in four companies in the United States were at risk of a material cyberattack, according to chief information security officers (CISO). With this in mind, cybersecurity and compliance expert, Kiteworks, sought to identify the US states where businesses are most at risk of cyberattacks. To do so, the company created a points-based index which analysed a variety of factors such as annual victim counts, financial losses from cyberattacks, increases in both victims and losses, and the types of cyberattacks experienced. Key findings: Colorado is the state where businesses are most at risk of cyberattacks, with a risk score of 7.96. Colorado has seen a 58.7% increase in victim losses since 2017 With the highest population of 38 million, California’s annual cyberattack losses amount to over $656 million The state of Missouri has the biggest four-year moving increase in financial losses attributed to cyberattacks, with a 136% increase since 2017 Virginia is the only state to see a decrease in cyberattack victims since 2017, with a decrease of 10.8% Colorado is the state where businesses are most at risk of cyberattacks, with a risk score of 7.96 out of 10. Despite its mid-sized population of 5,877,610, Colorado experienced the highest rate of cyberattacks since 2017 and has reported 10,776 annual victims from 2020. Despite Colorado only seeing a moving increase of 3.8% in victims since 2017, the state has faced significant financial losses due to cyberattacks, with a 58.7% increase in losses since 2017, amounting to $104,476,603. This is 65% higher than in the neighbouring state of Utah ($53,047,234). This could be due to Colorado’s aging population, as reports show people over the age of 75 are most likely to report repeat cybercrime victimisation. New York is in second place, with a risk score of 7.84 out of 10. As the fourth most populous state with 19,571,216 residents, New York reported 27,205 annual victims between 2020-2023. By contrast, Massachusetts reported one third the number of victims (8,749) over the same period as New York. New York has seen a 14.4% increase in victims over four years, with reports showing cyberattack complaints up 53% since 2022. The financial losses from cyberattacks in the state have also surged by 75.7%, totalling a staggering $440,673,485 lost. Nevada ranks third with a risk score of 7.62 out of 10, reflecting the state's growing vulnerability to cyberattacks. With a population of 3,194,176, Nevada reported 10,551 annual victims from 2020 to 2023. The state has experienced a significant 27.6% increase in victim counts over four years, indicating a rapid rise in cybercrime incidents. Just earlier this year, the state's Gaming Control Board’s website was hit with a cyberattack, resulting in the site being offline for several days. The financial losses from cyberattacks have risen in Nevada by 25.2% since 2017, totalling to $44,994,168, 72% more than the neighbouring state of Idaho ($12,427,049). Business Email Compromise (BEC) is the cyberattack in the US with the highest financial impact, with losses exceeding $1 billion ($1,747,924,931) since 2020 and an average loss of $88,350 per incident. BEC attacks involve fraudsters impersonating business executives or employees to deceive victims into transferring funds or revealing sensitive information. Credit card and check fraud rank second, causing $516,046,155 in total losses and an average loss of $27,039 per incident. This fraud typically involves unauthorised use of payment information. Malware attacks, in third place, have resulted in losses of $237,469,021 with an average loss of $83,235 per incident. Non-payment/non-delivery attacks are the most common US cyber threat since 2020 with 60,113 incidents, which involves fraudsters tricking victims into paying for undelivered goods or services. The second most prevalent is personal data breaches, with 40,523 incidents, which can involve unauthorised access to sensitive information often leading to identity theft and fraud. Patrick Spencer, a spokesperson at Kiteworks, comments, “Our study reveals a concerning trend: cyberattacks are on the rise, both in frequency and financial impact. As cyber threats continue to evolve, proactive investment in advanced security technologies and employee training can significantly enhance a company's resilience against cybercrime, as well as a greater focus on data security. “Businesses should adopt a content-defined zero trust approach to secure their sensitive communications. By consolidating email, file sharing, SFTP, managed file transfer, and web forms into a private content network protected by a hardened virtual appliance, organisations can ensure that sensitive content is only accessed by authorised users. This approach provides advanced security, comprehensive governance, and regulatory compliance, ensuring the protection of sensitive content.” For more from Kiteworks, click here.

Summit Homes enhances operations courtesy of Macquarie

Macquarie Telecom, part of Macquarie Technology Group, has announced it has signed a new agreement with Summit Homes Group, a Perth-based leading residential builder. The deal has enabled Summit Homes to enhance its operations, decrease costs, and improve customer service as it delivers modern builds for Western Australia’s growing population. As Summit Homes’ business expanded from 280 to more than 500 staff in the last few years, with multiple additional sites, the company sought to enhance its operations with a more integrated and efficient telecommunications solution. It was vital to Summit Homes to maintain focus on delivering exceptional customer service while also looking to improve cost control and security as cyber risks expand in Australia. Recognising the limitations of its provider and dissatisfied with the high cost, lack of customer service, and lack of understanding of Summit Homes’ growing business needs, the company engaged in a tender process to find a comprehensive networking upgrade that would replace its existing environment and streamline infrastructure management, enhance security, and improve bandwidth across current and future sites. Surrounded by reports of the Western Australia housing crisis, many residential builders struggled with increased demands and soaring costs. “In the residential construction industry, embracing change and prioritising customer experience is crucial,” says Summit Homes IT Manager, Fabio Fusari. “We prioritise building strong relationships with our clients and understanding their unique requirements for traditional homes, unit developments, renovations, modular and ‘innovative tiny’ homes. “When it comes to people’s homes, personalised interactions and proactive communication aren’t ‘nice-to-have’, they’re critical.” Having partnered with Macquarie Telecom in 2003 for a mobile fleet of over 200 services, Summit Homes made the decision to rely on its trusted partner once again. The Australian telco rolled out a robust, secure, multi-carrier access wide area network (WAN) to all sites. The choice of best access type in each site, between NBN, Telstra, and other major carriers was pivotal in balancing cost reduction with quality of performance, and networks are made resilient with 4G/5G backup. “The dedicated project management team at Macquarie Telecom ensured the rollout of the network to all sites, including our showcase head office and new regional offices, was smooth,” Fabio adds. “If we had an issue, our call would be answered immediately by someone local, and we knew the problem would be fixed.” The new agreement has considerably improved network infrastructure which resulted in improved connectivity and efficiency across all sites and primed the company for continued expansion. Summit Homes has also seen cost savings and a reduction in administrative overhead, allowing the company to focus more on its core business of building quality homes and providing exceptional customer service. “Summit Homes has seen astonishing success in a difficult sector which is currently under the microscope, and this is largely due to the company’s ingrained passion for innovation, adaptability, and customer service,” comments Aaron Tighe, Western Australia State Manager, Macquarie Telecom. “Macquarie Telecom has built its business on customer experience, and we place a high value on forging meaningful connections with our customers, so they are better able to achieve their goals.” “Macquarie Telecom’s customer-centric approach has ensured we receive personalised support and tailored solutions to meet our exact needs,” Fabio notes. “The customer service has been fantastic throughout the whole process. We’ve worked with different providers and partners in the past and although customer service is often excellent during the sales process, once you sign on the dotted line, you don’t hear from anyone ever again.” For more from Macquarie Telecom, click here.

New bill protecting public services from cyberattacks

In yesterday's King’s Speech (17 July 2024), the new Labour government pledged to strengthen the UK’s cybersecurity and resilience, promising to introduce new legislation designed to protect critical infrastructure and the digital services businesses rely on from highly damaging cyberattacks. The Cyber Security and Resilience Bill will expand the remit of existing regulation to cover a broader range of digital services and supply chains, put regulators in a better position to ensure best practices are implemented, and mandate increased reporting so that better data on cyberattacks, and their impact, is available. This comes following a series of cyberattacks against public bodies throughout the year, including attacks targeting the NHS and MoD. Darren Anstee, Chief Technology Officer for Security at NETSCOUT, comments on the new Cyber Security and Resilience Bill, and the best practices for organisations to implement to improve their cyber resilience: “The existing regulations in the UK, introduced in 2018, have helped to ensure that critical national infrastructure and the services it delivers are defended from cyberattacks. As we’ve seen recently though, attackers are targeting these services indirectly by going after elements of their supply chain. We’re also seeing the nature of the threats we all face evolve, with more sophistication and broader, as well as increasingly persistent, activity from nation-state affiliated actors. Given this, broadening the scope of regulation, and giving the regulators more powers to ensure best practices are followed, can only be a good thing. “Equally important is the ability to mandate increased incident reporting. A broader, deeper and more timely view into the nature of the incidents that organisations experience can help to both refine best practices and ensure that companies can move quickly to prevent attackers repeating their success. Bad actors share tools and techniques – organisations delivering critical services, and those involved in their supply chains, should follow suit, working with one another, or via industry and government institutions that can aid communications. “What’s key in delivering better reporting capability, from a technology perspective, is that organisations have consistent visibility across their increasingly diverse infrastructures, without blind spots at internal or external technology borders. Consistent broad and deep visibility helps to ensure comprehensive threat detection, but also speeds up investigation and delivers the forensic capability required.” For more from NETSCOUT, click here.

Verkada launches AI-powered search

Verkada, a provider of cloud-based physical security solutions, has announced it will offer customers a new AI-powered search in Beta. Leveraging a large language and large vision model, Verkada’s AI-powered search will enable customers to use everyday language to search their video security camera footage for people and vehicles, making their investigations even more intuitive and efficient. “Our new AI-powered search is an exciting expansion of the way that Verkada leverages the latest AI and computer vision models to keep people safe,” says Brandon Davito, Senior Vice President of Product at Verkada. “We are eager to continue improving and expanding our capabilities as we make Verkada’s platform the operating system of buildings of the future.” With the ability to search for people and vehicles across a much wider – and more granular – range of descriptive features, Verkada customers can now search through footage faster than ever. AI-powered search also enables customers to address industry-specific operational concerns – everything from retailers looking to identify shoplifters to manufacturing customers looking to ensure workplace safety. Verkada customers already beta testing its AI-powered search have been able to reduce the amount of time spent on investigations. Retail customers, for example, are saving time by searching for specific objects on a person like, “person wearing a striped sweater” or “person with a red purse near front door.” Verkada also announced a range of additional features and updates across its platform, including: an integration with ASSA ABLOY WiFi locks, a new Door Unlock API, four additional FIPS-validated Bullet cameras, and more. Designed with simplicity in mind, Verkada's six product lines – video security cameras, access control, environmental sensors, alarms, workplace, and intercoms – provide building security through an integrated, secure cloud-based software platform. Over 24,000 organisations across 85 countries worldwide trust Verkada as their physical security layer for easier management, intelligent control, and scalable deployments. For more from Verkada, click here.