Protecting the Everyday with BlackBerry

This blog was originally published on Blogs.BlackBerry.com. It is written by Steve Kovsky, Editorial Director at BlackBerry, and has been republished with his permission. 

 

There exists a great deal of overlap between cybersecurity and physical security. 

Each discipline is most effective when applied proactively and intelligently. Each benefits immensely from the streamlining and consolidation of legacy systems. And each one is increasingly crucial in today’s landscape, particularly as the lines between the two have begun to blur. 

From the perspective of Genetec™, which provides physical security systems and solutions to more than 42,000 customers in 159 countries, the two disciplines ultimately represent two sides of the same coin.  

“Cybersecurity in the physical security market has always been something that we’ve promoted and been concerned with,” explains David Grey, Senior Product Group Manager for the Genetec Video Appliances Group. It’s reached the point that “the video appliances we build—which started as a delivery mechanism for our software—have become a delivery mechanism for cybersecurity.”

Founded in 1997 by a group of engineers building IP-based video surveillance systems, Montreal-based Genetec has become a global leader in IP-based physical security, video management, access control, physical security appliances, and automatic license plate recognition (ALPR). Its client base spans virtually every industry and sector and includes several major cities, along with the world’s largest airports. In many ways, the company’s ongoing success can be tied back to its holistic approach to security. 

“Our mantra is to offer cyber by design and by default, which is why we continually add new cyber and privacy feature sets and tools to protect our systems,” says Laurent Villeneuve, Senior Product Marketing Manager in the Genetec Video Appliances Group. “We’ve always been very proactive about our approach to cybersecurity.” 

It was this approach that led the company to select CylancePROTECT® as a core component of its product architecture. Deployed by Genetec in 2017 as part of its pre-hardened video appliances, Genetec Streamvault™, the endpoint protection solution has already proven itself to be an invaluable part of the company’s systemic security strategy.  

The company’s use of CylancePROTECT and its 7th-generation AI-based endpoint protection has paid off for its customers. For example, during the pandemic, Genetec installed health monitoring stations for a major manufacturer. When that manufacturer later experienced a major breach, those stations—secured by CylancePROTECT—were the only hardware that wasn’t impacted. After seeing the effectiveness of the Genetec platform in the wake of the incident, the organization has approved a company-wide upgrade of all physical security systems. 

“CylancePROTECT continues to be one of the leading solutions on the market,” explains Villeneuve. “It offers the features we need, and we like how lightweight it is. It provides us with protection and performance without sacrificing CPU cycles, and it really helps us meet our cyber security goals.” 

“We also appreciate that the predictive piece of it works online and offline,” adds Grey. “Even when it’s not connected to any server, it’s able to provide a high level of protection. And operationally, it’s very easy—low touch and frictionless—which is ideal for how we want to operate.” 

The lines between physical security and cybersecurity have never been less clearly defined. And they’ll likely continue to blur further as the world hurtles down the path of digital transformation and the Internet of Things (IoT). Genetec, for its part, feels well-prepared—and well-partnered—for that eventuality.  

“For modern cybersecurity, you can’t just rely on the cloud or on a data center,” Grey concludes. “You need good security all the way to the edge, and you need to have the same level of security whether it’s an edge IoT device or a cloud solution. Providers like BlackBerry are going to be pivotal in making that happen.”

Click here to read the full BlackBerry case study.