Dirk Stegemann, Bosch Security Systems, Inc. and Darnell Washington, SecureXperts, Inc.
Recognizing that the national and economic security of the United States depends on the reliable functioning of critical infrastructure, President Obama issued Executive Order 13636, Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity, in February 2013.
The president directed the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to work with stakeholders to develop a voluntary framework – based on existing standards – of guidelines for reducing cyber risks to critical infrastructure.
The U.S. federal government has also identified the need for improving the physical security of its facilities and integration with logical networks. In particular, several security incidents have led federal agencies to the conclusion that their current video surveillance systems are no longer capable of adequately protecting their facilities because they lack support for facial recognition and video analytics, are insufficiently protected against cyber attacks, and are not aligned with the federal enterprise IT architecture.