The financial sector is one of the segments that pose the greatest challenges for the security industry, which is why the implementation and development of effective mechanisms to counter criminal initiatives has taken in recent years.
by Santiago Jaramillo H.
For Javier Blanco, CEO of the company IProNet Sistemas S.A., financial institutions have several explicit risks, although most of them are already contemplated and supported in their security policies, such as the case of assaults. However, there is a new crime that every day worries Security Supervisors, and that is, specifically, identity theft.
"This situation occurs especially in situations where a customer claims to be who they really are not in day-to-day operations, such as applying for credits, operations in front of an ATM (Automated Teller Machine), etc. The big problem with this type of crime is that they are difficult to prosecute, because normally the fraudster presents apparently valid credentials, which are not, before which it is very difficult to act," says Blanco, who adds that "in the case of ATMs it is very easy to know the PIN number of the card owned by the relative, be it the father, mother, etc. and before an oversight of this, approach the ATM and withdraw the money".
The most attractive and effective solution that currently exists, as our guest clarifies, is to reliably identify the person who claims to be who he is, through "identification and facial recognition", a "non-collaborative" method that allows comparing the images of the databases of the entities with the person who sits in front of the executive and return a "true" or "false", with a high degree of reliability. The same functionality is carried out before an ATM, at the moment in which the system requests the PIN, it must make a query and properly identify the image captured by the ATM camera with the one that appears in the databases of the entity, and if positive, proceed with the operation.
For her part, Raquel Elías, marketing manager of the company Scati Labs, argues that Latin American financial institutions currently face various risks such as internal or external bank fraud, the physical security of people against crimes such as extortion or the kidnapping of employees or the physical security of assets such as ATM's or other facilities against robberies and assaults.
He also explains that however, in recent years, computer and/ or electronic security is the activity in which banks are dedicating greater efforts due to the increase in cyber fraud such as scanning and duplication of bank cards, fishing or services associated with the cloud caused by the widespread use of the Internet and new technologies.
"With the aim of solving this type of incident, financial institutions are integrating their computer solutions for fraud prevention with those for electronic security through video, which allows them to better identify crime. These tools allow us to work in a preventive way avoiding possible fraud without affecting its daily operation (for example, avoiding the inoperability of an ATM)", says Elías, who also indicates that "the emergence of new regulations in different countries such as: Circular 052 in Colombia, Communications "A" 5120 and "A" 5136 in Argentina; or those in the process of approval, such as the Decree that RE is finalizing. NA. EM.SE. in Uruguay, they are helping to reduce or eliminate existing risks."
On the subject of innovation and new proposals for this segment, the representative of IProNet Sistemas indicates that the company he represents already has facial recognition and identification solutions with a high degree of efficiency, whose functionalities are proven. In this regard, he affirms that "customized solutions are being implemented through 'SDKs' to each entity, based on specific developments that combine access control with the real identification of the individual, in terms of security measures in access to the bank office, and the effective identification of people who visit the branches, to detect suspicious individuals prior to the commission of the offences."
For her part, the representative of Scati Labs explains in this sense that it is essential to offer the banking sector an integral solution that allows the exploitation and control, locally or remotely, of all existing systems, alarms, access control, etc., from a single or several control centers.
"For this reason we have incorporated into our solution some functions such as intelligent self-diagnosis, the centralization of technical alarms and the reception and visualization of the images associated with these alarms that facilitate the work of the operator allowing him to verify in a simple way each of the incidents. This video-verification avoids the costs associated with personnel, police, and opportunity cost of not attending real crimes as well as the prevention and active monitoring of real alarm situations in multiple places simultaneously and remote from the control center, "says our guest.
It also emphasizes that "following this line we have developed an activation system that allows the automatic download of future updates to facilitate the management and automatic administration of large video recorder parks as well as tools that perform the automatic check of all DVR / NVR of the park with its corresponding notification of failures by groups".
For the CEO of the company IProNet Sistemas S.A., the first and fundamental recommendation for people involved in the sector is to put themselves in the hands of experts and contrast opinions before making decisions. "The security industry has taken a 180-degree turn, and many of the partners who were once competitive and tech-savvy have seen how they have had to make a great effort to update their knowledge and learn new technologies, something that not everyone has been willing to do, or have not had the ability to do. Modern security systems encompass areas such as communications, processing capacity, analysis capacity, storage, etc., which were not critical before, but which in a modern security system are essential and mark enormous functional, and even economic differences, and therefore, an adequate study in these aspects is necessary, since otherwise, you have a great chance of failing," he emphasizes.
CCTV, efficient solution
In general, and as pointed out by Raquel Elías, marketing manager, and Alberto Pérez, sales manager of the company Scati Labs, the main points to consider to have a powerful solution in terms of CCTV are:
*Capture of images: "When the important thing is the identification of the crime".
*Recording or handling of the captured images: "The hardware engraving platform must adapt to the characteristics of the installation".
*Administration of the video recorder park: "Exploitation of large video recorder parks managed in an integral way from a control center".
*Change management: "Adaptability of the CCTV solution to changes".
They also emphasize that for the security director of any financial institution, the identification of the crime is essential for the resolution of incidents that may arise in the different locations. For this reason, it is essential to have the right technology at all times capable of offering the highest quality of the images captured. Under this premise, each of the critical environments of the entity must be covered by specific cameras that solve the different associated problems.
In this way, as our guests emphasize, the use of WDR (Wide Dynamic Range) technology that some cameras incorporate and that automatically corrects sudden backlight contrasts as well as glare is highly recommended in areas of access to the branch or even in ATMs allowing to distinguish the face of the person who is at that moment present in the installation.
Although in many cases the installation of video surveillance cameras is used preventively to avoid crime, in other situations it is necessary to capture images without the user perceiving the presence of the cameras. This is the case of atM transaction recordings where the installation of Pinhole cameras, of small dimensions, are optimal for their perfect integration within the ATM itself.
Also for environments where low lighting conditions are the biggest drawback, the use of infrared cameras is ideal for capturing images even in total darkness in enclosures such as vaults.
Also, the representatives of Scati Labs emphasize that the use of Megapixel IP cameras has been increased since, by offering a higher resolution of the images, they allow a better identification of people and / or objects. These types of cameras are usually installed in windows, in the operations lobby or even in ATM areas in order to identify details and verify fraud. On the other hand, IP technology is capable of performing some tasks of the recording equipment, such as some simple image processing and the sending of associated alarms. It is important to highlight the ability to dynamically manage elements such as capture speed, image resolution or video compression quality, adapting to customer needs and service levels offered by the network.
Regarding the recording and handling of images, in addition to having "multitasking" recording equipment that offers the possibility of performing several tasks at the same time, such as real-time monitoring and request for recorded video, it is essential to define the basic requirements of each installation to know the recording needs of the same.
In this way, in the case of displaced ATMs, the use of ultra-compact video recorders with large storage capacity is vital. For the administration of large facilities, such as corporate buildings, it is essential to use powerful video recorders that manage up to 32/64 cameras at 30 fps (per channel) and for vehicles such as armored vans, the use of on-board video recorders are very useful to prevent internal fraud.
Given the incorporation of IP technology, Elías and Pérez ponder that the adaptation of hybrid equipment is ideal to combine both analog and IP cameras since they allow the use of the advantages that both technologies represent.
In order for all this network to work perfectly, it is important to have powerful management tools that solve, among others, issues such as the resizing of images through H.264 compression formats to improve the use of bandwidths and the reduction of the necessary storage, thanks to which a greater efficiency of remote video management is achieved.
Some functions such as intelligent self-diagnosis, the centralization of technical alarms and the reception and visualization of the images associated with these alarms facilitate the work of the operator allowing him to verify in a simple way each of the incidents that have occurred and improve, therefore, the operation and administration of the video recorder park. In addition, this type of tools allow a local and / or remote administration of the park so that authorized persons can solve incidents from anywhere in the world connected to the Internet.
Likewise, in order to favor the preventive maintenance of the equipment, it is essential to have tools that carry out automatic updates of the DVR / NVR park as well as the automatic check of all the video recorders and notification of failures by groups.
Undoubtedly, the key to selecting the right CCTV system is in the choice of a manufacturer capable of becoming a long-term technological partner with which the entity can face future challenges of adaptation to new changes that may arise either legal (Circular 052 in Colombia, SEPROBAN in Mexico or the LOPD in Spain); technological as new compression formats and / or corporate as could be the mergers between companies.
Finally, our guests emphasize that optimal change management will allow the security system to grow over time without incurring hidden costs such as the renewal of equipment due to obsolescence, the purchase of new platforms as a result of the creation of new regulations or the integration between current technologies with the
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