Surveillance & Security News for September 2021

Integro's latest heavy-duty portable power equipment is industrial IoT-ready, thanks to source-tagging with embeddable Xerafy RFID. Industrial IoT innovation With its Paramount Kit, Integro LLC, a globally renowned company in power distribution solutions, brings industrial IoT innovation to portable power and other industries, by making it possible to reliably read an RFID tag from portable power equipment. Hubbell, a globally renowned company in electrical devices, is also launching its line...

The cost of manual instrument tracking was a primary driver for Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, recognised as Germany’s best hospital. The time and cost of tracking 300,000 surgical instruments were growing at an unsustainable rate. In order to properly service and document instrument lifecycles, the hospital needed a technology that could bypass the identification and reading limitation inherent in contaminated instruments, while ensuring seamless tracking operations in t...

The Mexico City Police Department will deploy Xerafy Pico and XS Dot on-metal RFID tags for a weapons tracking application, which will improve the security and accountability of its armories. Xerafy’s partner in Mexico, Ofi Equipos PC, is spearheading the project. The RFID solution was adopted in an effort to address an ongoing problem, with the loss of police department weapons. Mexico City Police Department The Mexico City Police Department employs more than 34,000 officers, as well as...

With school starting this month, cybercriminals are back in action, targeting university students in an attempt to steal valuable personal information. In a recent attack, uncovered by Abnormal Security, a credential phishing attacker used a legitimate email account and created false urgency, in order to steal student credentials, through a phishing website. Credential phishing attack In this attack, cybercriminals used the real university email of a person on the ‘Student Services Team&...

Founded in 1982, CNOOC is the third-largest national oil company in the People’s Republic of China, with revenues over $19 billion. CNOOC and its subsidiary, China Oilfield Services (COSL), selected the Xerafy Xplorer as the world's first UHF RFID tags, ATEX-certified, designed for use in downhole drilling operations. The deployment of 100,000 Xerafy Xplorer tags will align with the 10 percent year-over-year growth rate of oil output targeted by CNOOC. Asset management For CNOOC, the Xp...

PetroChina, China’s second-largest oil and gas producer and supplier, uses Xerafy’s rugged RFID tags, in order to track pipeline assets in the field. The project involves deploying Xerafy's XS Dot Wedge RFID tag on oil pipelines in Xinjiang, over the course of five years, to improve the pipeline asset and lifecycle management, reduce costs, and non-productive time in critical processes risks related to pipeline failures. Securing PetroChina's pipelines PetroChina is a subsidiary o...

Trakya Döküm is a world-class ISO/TS 16949 certified Disamatic foundry. It produces cast and machined parts in all grades of ductile, grey, and malleable irons destined for automotive, white goods, construction, and other industries. As the second-largest foundry in Turkey, it manufactures 80,000 different product lines. Trakya Döküm lacked a real-time overview of manufacturing along its production line. This led to inefficient under- or overproduction, poor inventory contro...

Keystone Cable manufactures and supplies cables for the building & infrastructure, oil & gas, and data communication markets. Its work-in-process inventory is made of thousands of different products at its Singapore factory, which supplies customers in Singapore and throughout the region. To the untrained eye, the cables often look similar, but there are dozens of product variations based on the core, insulating material, and other components. Accurate location management "The Xerafy...

Impinj, Inc., a RAIN RFID provider and Internet of Things pioneer introduced three next-generation RAIN RFID reader chips that enable IoT device makers to meet the increasing demand for item connectivity in retail, supply chain and logistics, consumer electronics, and many other markets.  The new Impinj E710, E510, and E310 RAIN RFID reader chips are high-performance, low-power systems-on-chips (SoCs) that extend the item connectivity opportunity to hundreds of billions of things worldwide...

On March 17, the FBI released its seminal annual Internet Crime Report. Once again, socially-engineered attacks (including business email compromise, spoofing, and phishing) by far were the number one cybercrime by financial loss, accounting for $2.1 billion of the $4.2 billion in losses to U.S. businesses and consumers. These attacks utilise impersonations to get companies to transfer money to fraudulent accounts and pose significantly more financial danger to an organisation than well-known ta...

As Thailand’s oldest bank, Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) has successfully navigated more than a century of change. But more recently, as the tech-savvy Thai market eagerly embraced the digital revolution, SCB found itself falling behind. One pain point was correcting errors in its ATM network; refunds were taking up to a week. It was a delay the bank’s customers were unwilling to endure. How did SCB fix its ATM woes? It brought in a team of Blue Prism digital workers. Challenge...

Telefónica is Germany’s largest telecommunications company, currently servicing more than 42 million mobile connections. Many of those connections are made possible through a contract. And contracts need to be regularly renewed. Telefónica is updating thousands of contracts every week. Optimising this process was a priority.  Challenge Telefonica has 23 million customers with fixed-term contracts, and renewing millions of these contr...

Rebel Energy is a new entrant in the UK energy market and will soon supply 100% clean and affordable energy to all UK households. Rebel’s mission is to drive the nation’s energy transition agenda toward renewable power generation, ensuring poorer households are not left behind. But in an already cluttered and highly competitive market, how is Rebel giving itself the best chance for a successful launch? They’re hardwiring intelligent automation into their business. C...

A UK bank has an impressively long history, and throughout they have looked for ways to innovate and improve their business. When COVID-19 struck, they found themselves well-positioned to help customers in need of mortgage relief. How? With a Blue Prism intelligent digital workforce. Challenge The lockdown and shelter-in-place mandates that were issued early in the COVID-19 pandemic led to widespread unemployment and financial worries. Homeowners with mortgages were left wondering&nb...

When UK families require assistance while caring for a loved one, they often turn to Bupa. This well-respected healthcare organisation offers residential and nursing care at over 120 homes and ten retirement villages. With its residents among the most vulnerable to COVID-19, Bupa knew it needed a way to quickly identify any ill staff members to keep residents safe. A Blue Prism digital workforce came on board to help. In fact, Bupa’s intelligent automation program was so impactful, i...

KFM was created by King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in the UK as a wholly-owned commercial entity. KFM provides the Trust with a broad range of procurement and support services. However, keeping one of the busiest teaching hospitals in London well stocked was a challenge, and knowing which invoices among the many were overdue was even more difficult. So, instead of requiring employees to complete the task, KFM gave the job to Blue Prism digital workers. Challenge C...

One of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, headquartered in Switzerland, has products available in 155 countries and employs approximately 110,000 worldwide. The company is a proven leader in investing in research and development, and, in 2020, was ranked in Fortune magazine’s Most Admired Companies Pharmaceutical Industry list. This global pioneer has been utilising IntSights for the last two years in various capacities, including detection and remediation of data exposure...

goto.energy is a trusted supplier of green energy to the UK domestic market, and they pride themselves on offering customers transparent, sustainable value for money. Though a relatively new contender in the energy market, they’ve had an advantage. With no legacy system in place, goto.energy can take a digital-first approach, build their business around intelligent automation and attract outside investment. Challenge to address scalability Unlike other energy companies that ha...

KFM is a wholly-owned subsidiary of King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in the UK. Acting as its commercial arm, KFM was created by the Trust to provide it with a broad range of medical support services, such as procurement of supplies and equipment, supply chain management and outpatient pharmacy services. KFM aimed to increase efficiency by automating legacy processes, so they reached out to Blue Prism and deployed a digital workforce. Challenge As one of London’s...

“Intelligent automation is becoming increasingly embedded within our core operations – transforming the way we work and the things we’re able to do for our customers,” said Shane Kokoruda, Vice President of Enterprise Business Solutions. Four million people trust Eversource to supply their electricity, natural gas and water. As the largest utility in New England, Eversource’s priority is to provide safe, top-tier service to its customers and is always loo...

“We didn’t have any time to prepare; customers were already worried and asking for our help as soon as the Government announced the scheme. We knew there was no easy system solution to use so we knew we had to find an alternative response that we could deliver safely at pace for our customers when they needed us the most,” said Katie MarriottHead of Mortgage Services. For more than 145 years, Leeds Building Society has helped its members save and have the home they want....

A UK bank has been supporting British citizens for centuries. They know that COVID-19 has affected all of their customers but in different ways. The bank continues to look for new ways to lend a hand. A strong and longstanding intelligent automation program has allowed them to act quickly to help customers when new ideas arise. Challenge The economic effects of COVID-19 have created widespread financial stress. The bank wanted to help alleviate that stress for customers. Early in the...

Measures are taken to prevent the function of fire stairs in buildings and workplaces against the possibility of theft; cause life-threatening events to occur. Keeping the fire escape doors locked prevents people from evacuating in the face of a possible fire hazard. Making statements on the subject, Tepe Security General Manager Özgür Gök said that the fire escape stairs, which should be used for the safe evacuation of the people in the building, are one of the most basic elemen...

The threat actor behind the SolarWinds attack, the Russian-based Nobelium, has orchestrated another successful vendor email compromise attack, this time targeting the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). According to the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC), Nobelium compromised the USAID’s Constant Contact account, so as to send phishing emails that included links containing malware. Zero-day phishing attacks The incident highlights how zero-day, never-se...

Manufacturers and MRO companies are searching for ways to track and manage tools effectively, and RFID-based Internet of Things (IoT) technology is emerging as an effective option. Founded in 1908, CRRC Puzhen operates four bases in Nanjing, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, and Anhui with about 6,100 employees. The company develops CRH6-type inter-city EMU, 25 types of railway trains, and various types of bogies and brakes. The smart tool control solution is deployed in the company’s Nanjing base and...

Blue Prism® has created a new value-added distribution (VAD) model by partnering with StarLink, the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa (META) region’s fastest growing specialised cyber and cloud value-added distributor. This new model aligns with Blue Prism’s broader mission to help organisations around the world easily access Blue Prism technology and services and contributes to the business’s globalisation efforts: To expand Blue Prism’s presence in key geographies...

Blue Prism® announced the availability of Blue Prism Service Assist on Amazon Web Services (AWS) – a comprehensive, no-code, intelligent automation contact centre solution that combines intelligent digital workers and native AWS services so enterprises can deliver faster, more efficient, and more engaging customer experiences. Blue Prism Service Assist for AWS combines the capabilities of Amazon Connect and Amazon ElastiCache with Blue Prism’s Servi...

Toshiba Electronics Europe GmbH addresses the specialist storage needs for small and medium-scale surveillance applications with the launch of two new S300 Hard Disk Drives (HDD). The additional models, available in 4TB and 6TB, leverage Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) technology to offer higher density storage solutions. As a result, they are optimised for small/medium scale deployments – allowing higher capacities at a lower cost and power consumption. This means that users can implem...

Impinj, Inc., a RAIN RFID provider and Internet of Things pioneer announced that Brian Wong will join its executive leadership team as chief product officer, effective May 10, 2021. With over 35 years of experience in the technology sector, Wong brings extensive strategic, operational, and financial expertise to lead Impinj’s product organisation.  As CPO, Wong will continue developing Impinj’s world-class product organisation. He will focus on advancing Impinj’s platform...

Vectra AI, a pioneer in the cloud and network detection and response (NDR) released extended endpoint detection and response (EDR) native integration support in the Cognito platform to enhance the user experience for the security tools and procedures already deployed in their arsenal. Providing comprehensive security solutions  By unifying the NDR and EDR experience in a single UI, users get fast, simple, turnkey integrations that offer comprehensive security coverage across the enterpris...