Government Security


States Seek to Criminalize Some TSA Pat Downs

Workers could be charged with sexual assault, labeled sex offenders.

HID multiCLASS Magnetic Stripe Readers Get FIPS 201 Certification

The listing enables U.S. government organizations to purchase HID Global's latest physical access reader products as they begin to implement migration programs from legacy magnetic stripe cards to contactless 13.56 MHz FIPS 201 credentials, for both single- and two-factor authentication scenarios.

Addison Police

Texas City Expands Business Surveillance Capabilities

The police department in the Dallas town of Addison, Texas, is the first in the country to partner with Stealth Monitoring, a surveillance monitoring company that "pushes" video from its customers to the police department when it detects suspicious activity.

ADT, Brivo Implement Web-Based Access Control For Five Federal Facilities

ADT Security Services and Brivo Systems recently announced the implementation of a web-based access control solution for five federal facilities managed by the General Services Administration in Detroit and the Chicago area.

ManTech Names Daniel J. Keefe Senior Vice President for Strategic Initiatives

In his new role, Keefe will lead strategic initiatives and manage relationships between TSG and its customers, potential customers and strategic partners.

Adm. Thad Allen, "Border Wars" Producer To Keynote GovSec

U.S. Coast Guard Ret. Admiral Thad Allen, who served as the National Incident Commander during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and Nicholas Stein, the award-winning producer of National Geographic Channel’s “Border Wars,” will be the featured keynote speakers at the free Expo during the 2011 Government Security Expo & Conference (GovSec) featuring the U.S. Law Enforcement Conference & Exposition.

Chicago Housing Authority Uses Wi-Fi To Help Power Video Surveillance System

Ruckus Wireless recently announced that it has teamed with Xtivity Solutions (Xtivity), a leading wireless integration, security, and information technology services firm, to provide high-speed, long-range Wi-Fi systems to the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA), one of the nation's largest public housing authorities.

GovSec International Cyber Security Series To Explore Realities Of Global Threats

The Internet has no borders, but cybercrimes do. While the computers and networks being attacked may be in the U.S., the malicious communications are routed through various countries, and the cybercriminals’ locations are often outside of U.S. jurisdiction.



CARTES Trade Show For Smart Cards Coming To The United States In 2012

The team of CARTES and IDentification and CARTES in ASIA recently announced the launch of a new event: CARTES in North America, which will take place from March 5-7, 2012 in Las Vegas.

Irvine Sensors Forms Technical Advisory Board

Initial members of the board have been selected based on their recognized stature and experience in the commercial Information Security and Aerospace and Defense business sectors. They are: Jeff Debrosse, William McBorrough,Anthony J. Tether and Simon Williams.

National Cyber Security Alliance Elects New Board Officers

John Havermann, vice president and director of cyber programs at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), will serve as NCSA board president.

Coastal Texas City Installs Wireless Video Surveillance System

The city of Freeport, Texas has selected ADT Security Services to provide and install the first phase of a wireless video surveillance system to help reduce crime in a public housing project and a marina. Later planned phases of the system will help protect critical infrastructure in one of the nation’s largest ports and home to the fourth largest oil reserve and 29 chemical companies.

Honeywell's Vindicator Technologies Gets DIACAP Certification

The testing certifies that the products can be safely installed on any network to protect mission-critical resources without exposing the organization to security risks.

Green Card

Latest Generation of Green Cards Among Most Secure IDs Worldwide

U.S. Customs and Immigration Services recently updated the security in its permanent resident cards with optical security media and RFID tags.

Codebench Appoints New Director of Sales

As director of sales, Fallon will manage partner relationships and educate the market about Codebench’s software-based solutions.

Securityhunter Wins Security Solutions BPA from Health and Human Services Dept.

Securityhunter will provide federal agencies with a simplified and accelerated means of securing a wide range of physical security solutions at discounted General Services Administration rates, including those that meet Homeland Security Presidential Directive-12 requirements.

Texas Agency Installs More Than 3,200 H.264 Megapixel Cameras

IQinVision recently announced the completion of a major video surveillance project with the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services (DADS).

AMAG Technology Selects Mike Mostow for Vice President of Government Systems

Mostow will be based in AMAG's Arlington, Va., office where he will lead and manage the government systems sales and sales engineering team, and develop and implement strategies and plans to further expand and better support AMAG's growing base of Symmetry homeland security management system resellers and end users.

API Technologies Appoints Bel Lazar as President and Chief Operating Office

API Technologies Corp., a provider of engineered systems, sub-systems and secure communications to the global defense and aerospace industries, announced the appointment of Bel Lazar as president and chief operating officer. Lazar will be responsible for the company's global operations.

Sp Server Startup

Government Seeks Cybersecurity, Superiority in Mostly Lawless Domain

The federal government's computer networks, vast and incredibly critical to the country's day-to-day functioning, are subject to millions of attacks per day. It has no stated overarching cybersecurity policy, and there is little in the way of international law to guide the way, either. How the government protects these networks, and interacts with other nations' networks, remains under debate.

What the Government Really Wants

Federal government buildings pose similar security challenges to commercial facilities: They need to control access, visually monitor daily activity and manage intrusion-prevention. To meet these demands, the government must integrate with numerous security manufacturers that supply a means to protect different functions, such as single sign-on for individual computers, or large servers to provide redundancy and fault-tolerant needs.

killswitch

Senators Seek Ban on Internet 'Kill Switch'

The proposed Cybersecurity and Internet Freedom Act explicitly states that “neither the President, the Director of the National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications or any officer or employee of the United States Government shall have the authority to shut down the Internet.”

New U.S. Green Cards to Contain Optical Security Media

LaserCard Corporation has received an order of approximately $8.6 million for optical security media cards to be issued under the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Permanent Resident Card (Green Card) program. Delivery is scheduled for completion in August.

Growing the Government

A critical element of protecting troops in the field of battle is proper identity management. A military installation in the Middle East, for example, must ensure that only authorized personnel can enter the camp. For soldiers, losing an access card to an enemy could be disastrous. Personal identification numbers are too easy to steal or share. To solve this problem, the military turned to biometrics just as other government entities have done as well.

Full-Service Security

The Hillsborough County Sheriff ’s office (HSCO) in Tampa, Fla., is a full-service law enforcement agency comprising more than 3,400 employees. Leadership and officers value integrity, professionalism and community-oriented policing as the top priorities of agency operations. Today, HCSO, led by Sheriff David Gee, is one of fewer than 20 public safety agencies in the nation to attain law enforcement, jail and medical accreditation.

Beyond the Door

For many years now, the promise of biometrics has not been fully realized. This is, in large part, because performance in the lab is not representative of performance in the field. That’s the reason major programs for Citizen ID and others have never really been fulfilled.

The Other Story

When border security comes to mind, people typically think of long lines at border crossing stations, fence lines, and the reported apprehension of illegal immigrants. Although those quintesssential images accurately depict daily life at the border, they certainly don’t tell the whole story.

What Contractors Should Know

Funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), the $787 billion economic stimulus package enacted and signed into law in February 2009, are now being disbursed. According to http://www.recovery.gov, the government’s official ARRA spending website, of the $25 billion in ARRA funds that had been awarded, only $18 billion has been disbursed.

U.S., China Cooperate on Fighting Spam

The report will present voluntary best practices for reducing spam which, according to MAAWG, accounts for about 90 per cent of email traffic.

Survey: 60 Percent of Parents Think College Campuses are Unsafe

Just four in 10 parents of college-bound students think college campuses are safe, and only 3 percent of parents believe colleges are well-equipped to deal with emergencies, according to a recent survey conducted by Kelton Research.

FLIR Systems Wins Multi-Million Dollar Coastal Infrastructure Security Contract

FLIR Systems Inc. has teamed with Sonardyne International Ltd. on a multi-million dollar project in the United Arab Emirates. The companies, with FLIR as the project leader, will provide a commercial, off-the shelf, integrated perimeter and coastal protection solution for a key coastal facility.

FLIR Systems Receives $5.6M Delivery Order From USSOCOM

This stabilized, lightweight, multi-sensor system will support the Long Range Ground Mobility Visual Augmentation Systems program and ground vehicles.

Kevin Donovan Named Federal Security Director for Will Rogers World Airport

Donovan will be responsible for handling day-to-day security operations, which includes both passenger and baggage screening at OKC.

Shanghai Financial Services Area Implements Verint IP Solution

Shanghai International Financial Centre (IFC) in China’s Pudong Lujiazui Finance and Trade Zone is implementing the Nextiva IP video portfolio from Verint Video Intelligence Solutions.

Opera Solutions Adds Former IBM Deputy CTO to Leadership Team

Herb Kelsey will pilot Opera's initiatives for new product development in cybersecurity and intelligence analysis.

U.S. Secret Service Uses Gaming Technology, 3D Modeling To Train For Incidents

Chemical releases, suicide bombers, air and subsurface threats: the U.S. Secret Service needs to be prepared to handle these real-life incidents. Training to respond to such incidents, however, has been more theoretical than practical. Now, with help from the Department of Homeland Security Science & Technology Directorate (S&T), the Secret Service is giving training scenarios a high-tech edge: moving from static tabletop models to virtual kiosks with gaming technology and 3D modeling.

Fujitsu Appoints Charles Yanak as Dir. of Product Management and Partner Development

Yanak will report directly to Christer Bergman, vice president of Fujitsu’s biometric solutions, who joined the company in December.

HID Global Facilitates Secure Network Access For More Than 85,000 U.S. Government Employees

HID Global, provider of solutions for the delivery of secure identity, recently announced it has secured an 85,000-unit order from a major U.S. government agency for the company’s OMNIKEY contact smart card readers for network authentication.

SightLogix Highlights Video Security Trailer at the Border Security Expo

At the Border Security Expo, SightLogix will highlight the Video Security Trailer (VST), a self-contained, rapidly deployable perimeter security solution for temporary or long-term surveillance that is applicable to border security applications.

Cisco Makes MorphoTrack an Ecosystem Provider

Cisco has selected MorphoTrack (Safran group) as an ecosystem provider, making the company’s MorphoAccess biometric readers available as an integral component of Cisco’s IP-based access control system.

Mobile Active Defense Partners with MainNerve on Healthcare Smartphone Security

Mobile Application Development (M.A.D.) Partners LLC and MainNerve are collaborating to provide iPhone, iPad and smartphone security and compliance to the critical healthcare sector.

Army Corps of Engineers Selects BPSI as Part of $250M Security Contract

BPSI's partner, Trofholz Technologies Inc. (TTI), has been awarded a contract to provide electronic security systems for the U.S. Army Corps of engineers. As part of TTI's contract, BPSI will provide its U.S. Department of Homeland Security SAFETY Act-designated Sentry One system for CBRN contaminate detection.

ADT Awarded Contract By State Of New Jersey

ADT Security Services announced recently that the state of New Jersey has joined a four-year cooperative procurement agreement with the National Joint Powers Alliance, serviced by ADT, which will allow state and municipal agencies, school districts and public colleges and universities to satisfy competitive bid requirements to directly purchase security services and equipment from ADT.

LaserCard Now Part of HID Global

The LaserCard acquisition strengthens HID Global’s worldwide market position in the government ID market, and significantly expands its portfolio of identity authentication and government-issued credential solutions.

Police Departments Adopt Salient Stills Technology

Salient Stills, provider of video forensics and image enhancement, recently announced the Fall River Police Department, along with four other local police departments in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, has purchased a VideoFOCUS Pro subscription.

EU Agency Releases Report on Governmental Cloud Computing Security in EU

The main goal of the report is to support governmental bodies in taking informed, risk-based decisions regarding security of data, resilience of service and legal compliance on their way to the cloud. It also highlights security and resilience pros and cons of community, private and public cloud computing services for public bodies.

Ping Identity Expands Executive Team

Jonathan Buckley was named midmarket vice president, and Roger Oberg was named vice president of marketing for Ping Identity.

CertiPath Hires Judith Spencer as Policy Management Authority Chair

In this role, Spencer will set and maintain policies and drive consensus on a wide range of security issues affecting the CertiPath community.

Whitepaper: PIV-I Cards Provide Efficiency, Trust for State, Local Governments

Educating state and local governments on Personal Identity Verification Interoperable credentials (PIV-I) is the aim of a new whitepaper released by the Smart Card Alliance.

Facebook Chief Security Officer Joins National Cyber Security Alliance Board

Joe Sullivan, Facebook's chief security officer, has joined the National Cyber Security Alliance's board of directors. The organization is a nonprofit public-private partnership focused on cybersecurity awareness and education for all digital citizens.

Codebench Integrates With Sielox's Pinnacle Software

Codebench Inc., a provider of TWIC / HSPD-12 / FIPS-201 authentication software, has integrated its PIVCheck Plus software with the Pinnacle access control software from Sielox, offering federal agencies and other organizations a fully compliant HSPD-12 solution.

U.S. Air Force Awards Contract to SAIC to Support Network-Centric Operations

SAIC will provide IT services in support of network-centric operations under the NETCENTS-2 Enterprise Integration and Services Management contract.

Trend Micro Completes Acquisition of Mobile Armor

The acquisition agreement between Trend Micro and Mobile Armor expands Trend Micro's data protection portfolio, extending its encryption offerings to span from endpoints all the way into the public cloud.

Konica Minolta and HID Global Announce Partnership

Konica Minolta Business Solutions USA Inc., which provides imaging and networking technologies, and HID Global, have announced that Konica Minolta's has become a member in the Advantage HID Connect Partner Program.

Lumidigm and Verimetrics Collaborate on Biometrics-Based Single Sign-On Solutions

Lumidigm has announced that Verimetrics has selected Lumidigm’s Mercury and Venus fingerprint readers as its preferred biometric platforms for SmartProfile deployments in a wide range of environments, including hospitals, emergency response vehicles and retail stores.

Unisys Federal Systems Appoints New Leaders for Civilian Agencies, Homeland Security and Sales

Unisys Corporation announced two new appointments to the Unisys Federal Systems leadership team, as well as new roles for three members of the organization's existing senior management team.

SAIC Wins Contract to Provide Security and Force Protection Services to Department of Defense

Under the contract, SAIC will develop, procure, install and maintain electronic security systems and automated control systems as required, helping meet physical security and force protection requirements.

Franco

Franco van Heijningen to Lead Honeywell's Development of Critical Infrastructure Security

van Heijningen will lead Honeywell's Vindicator Technologies business, which offers electronic security systems that protect critical assets and personnel within the government, military, commercial and industrial markets at more than 1,500 sensitive sites across the globe.

Ted Marolf

IndigoVision Boosts North American Sales Team

IndigoVision has added two new regional sales managers for the Pacific Northwest and Great Plains, and the Southeast and Caribbean regions. More additions are planned in the coming months to enhance service and support the IndigoVision Certified Partner organization as well as provide end-user customer knowledge and awareness of the IndigoVision brand.

Omnilert Partners with Education Group to Provide Discounts on e2Campus Solution

Omnilert LLC, maker of e2Campus safety communication solution for education, announced a new partnership with the Organization for Educational Technology and Curriculum (OETC)

Featured

  • The Next Generation

    Video security technology has reached an inflection point. With advancements in cloud infrastructure and internet bandwidth, hybrid cloud solutions can now deliver new capabilities and business opportunities for security professionals and their customers. Read Now

  • Help Your Customer Protect Themselves

    In the world of IT, insider threats are on a steep upward trajectory. The cost of these threats - including negligent and malicious employees that may steal authorized users’ credentials, rose from $8.3 million in 2018 to $16.2 million in 2023. Insider threats towards physical infrastructures often bleed into the realm of cybersecurity; for instance, consider an unauthorized user breaching a physical data center and plugging in a laptop to download and steal sensitive digital information. Read Now

  • Enhanced Situation Awareness

    Did someone break into the building? Maybe it is just an employee pulling an all-nighter. Or is it an actual perpetrator? Audio analytics, available in many AI-enabled cameras, can add context to what operators see on the screen, helping them validate assumptions. If a glass-break detection alert is received moments before seeing a person on camera, the added situational awareness makes the event more actionable. Read Now

  • Transformative Advances

    Over the past decade, machine learning has enabled transformative advances in physical security technology. We have seen some amazing progress in using machine learning algorithms to train computers to assess and improve computational processes. Although such tools are helpful for security and operations, machines are still far from being capable of thinking or acting like humans. They do, however, offer unique opportunities for teams to enhance security and productivity. Read Now

New Products

  • ResponderLink

    ResponderLink

    Shooter Detection Systems (SDS), an Alarm.com company and a global leader in gunshot detection solutions, has introduced ResponderLink, a groundbreaking new 911 notification service for gunshot events. ResponderLink completes the circle from detection to 911 notification to first responder awareness, giving law enforcement enhanced situational intelligence they urgently need to save lives. Integrating SDS’s proven gunshot detection system with Noonlight’s SendPolice platform, ResponderLink is the first solution to automatically deliver real-time gunshot detection data to 911 call centers and first responders. When shots are detected, the 911 dispatching center, also known as the Public Safety Answering Point or PSAP, is contacted based on the gunfire location, enabling faster initiation of life-saving emergency protocols. 3

  • Camden CM-221 Series Switches

    Camden CM-221 Series Switches

    Camden Door Controls is pleased to announce that, in response to soaring customer demand, it has expanded its range of ValueWave™ no-touch switches to include a narrow (slimline) version with manual override. This override button is designed to provide additional assurance that the request to exit switch will open a door, even if the no-touch sensor fails to operate. This new slimline switch also features a heavy gauge stainless steel faceplate, a red/green illuminated light ring, and is IP65 rated, making it ideal for indoor or outdoor use as part of an automatic door or access control system. ValueWave™ no-touch switches are designed for easy installation and trouble-free service in high traffic applications. In addition to this narrow version, the CM-221 & CM-222 Series switches are available in a range of other models with single and double gang heavy-gauge stainless steel faceplates and include illuminated light rings. 3

  • EasyGate SPT and SPD

    EasyGate SPT SPD

    Security solutions do not have to be ordinary, let alone unattractive. Having renewed their best-selling speed gates, Cominfo has once again demonstrated their Art of Security philosophy in practice — and confirmed their position as an industry-leading manufacturers of premium speed gates and turnstiles. 3