Tyco International - Experts & Thought Leaders

Genetec Inc., a pioneering technology provider of unified security, public safety, operations, and business intelligence solutions, announced that the lawsuit filed by Sensormatic against Genetec had ended definitively in the company's favour with Genetec exonerated of any patent infringement and with the court awarding Genetec attorney fees. Sensormatic Electronics, LLC, a subsidiary of Tyco International, which is now merged with Johnson Controls, filed suit against Genetec in Delaware in June 2020, alleging infringement of two patents, U.S. Patent No. 7,307,652 entitled “Method and Apparatus for Object Tracking and Detection" ("the '652 patent"), and U.S. Patent No. 9,463,954 entitled “Access Control System for Override Elevator Control, and Method Therefor" ("the '954 patent"). Litigation between Sensormatic and Genetec On January 3, 2023, the Court invalidated the '652 patent following the Genetec motion for summary judgement. On February 15, 2023, Sensormatic unilaterally dismissed the remaining infringement claims regarding the '954 patent with prejudice, pioneering to the judge issuing a final judgement exculpating Genetec. The court found the case choice and found Genetec entitled to a substantial portion of its attorney fees Following the final judgement in its favour, Genetec moved to have its attorney fees awarded, which required the judge to find the case “exceptional” under US patent laws. On March 27, 2024, the Court found the case exceptional and found Genetec entitled to a substantial portion of its attorney fees. The Court also ordered that the parties meet to reach an agreement on the amount of attorney's fees to be awarded, following which Genetec and Sensormatic entered into an agreement regarding the amount to be paid to Genetec, ending the litigation and terminating appeals. This concludes all outstanding litigation between Sensormatic and Genetec. Nullification of invalid patents “We have stated in the past that Genetec considers this a simple case of friendly fire, and this remains true. That said, we take patent infringement accusations very seriously, even when they come from a subsidiary of a partner,” said Pierre Racz, President of Genetec Inc. “Genetec has a forward-facing approach to development. We do not copy our peers but look to the future to create technology that doesn’t exist yet. The successful conclusion of this litigation is a vindication of our innovative approach to product development.” Genetec announced the favourable conclusion of a lawsuit brought by a non-practicing entity Genetec has always taken a firm stand against unjustified patent lawsuits and seeks the nullification of invalid patents and restitutions in unfounded patent infringement claims. In 2020, Genetec announced the favourable conclusion of a lawsuit brought by a non-practicing entity (NPE) which ended with the NPE paying Genetec in a settlement. Accusations of infringement “Lawsuits like these can be seen as an accusation of plagiarism so it is important that we set the record straight. Genetec has a policy of vigorously defending itself against any patent case we consider unjustified and to seek attorney fees awards in all such cases. This outcome demonstrates to potential patent aggressors how seriously we take these accusations of infringement,” said Jean-Yves Pikulik, Director of Intellectual Property at Genetec Inc. Genetec was represented by Fish & Richardson P.C. in this matter. Sensormatic was represented by Foley & Lardner LLP.

Everon, also known as ADT Commercial, a pioneering security integrator and premier provider of commercial security, fire and life safety in the U.S., announced its executive leadership team since the recent completion of its acquisition by GTCR. Everon draws on an outstanding legacy of service excellence that is strengthened by over a decade of industry expertise, with many leaders having spent the majority of their careers in the industry. The organisation’s executive leadership team—led by Dan Bresingham, Chief Executive Officer—is no exception. GTCR’s acquisition Bresingham is a longtime veteran of the commercial security industry, with nearly 20 years Bresingham himself is a longtime veteran of the commercial security industry, with nearly 20 years of leadership experience that spans finance, sales strategy, go-to-market planning and operations. He most recently served as the President for ADT Commercial prior to GTCR’s acquisition in October 2023, and has also held high-level leadership positions with HSM Security, STANLEY Security, and Protection 1.  “I’ve always said that we have the most exceptional individuals in the industry pioneering and working for this organisation,” Bresingham said. “When I look at the leadership team we’ve assembled, I’m confident that their unparalleled talent, knowledge, and commitment to excellence will play a pivotal role in propelling Everon to new heights.” Everon’s executive leadership Led by Bresingham, Everon’s executive leadership team includes: Mike McWilliams, President & Chief Operating Officer McWilliams has spent over 30 years in the fire and life safety industry, most recently serving as Sr. Vice President, Field Operations for ADT Commercial. Previously, he was President and CEO of Red Hawk Fire & Security, prior to and through its acquisition by ADT in December 2018, and has held leadership positions with SimplexGrinnell and Tyco International. Mark Foley, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer Foley brings more than 30 years of industry experience to his role with Everon, previously serving as the Chief Financial Officer for ADT Commercial. His experience includes high-level positions for Tyco International and Red Hawk Fire & Security. Ken Teifer, Executive Vice President, Sales Teifer has spent nearly 35 years in the commercial security industry, and most recently held the position of Sr. Vice President, Sales for ADT Commercial. He’s been a prominent sales leader across the industry, including experience with STANLEY Security and Sonitrol. Ryan Fritts, Chief Information Officer Fritts is a nearly 20-year veteran of the commercial security and cybersecurity space, with extensive experience in security, product, technology and software delivery. He most recently served as the Chief Information Security Officer for ADT, and has previously held technology leadership positions with STANLEY Security and Protection 1. Kasia Moore, Chief Legal Officer Moore brings nearly 20 years of corporate legal experience to her role with Everon, previously serving as Vice President & Deputy General Counsel, Commercial for ADT. Prior to leading ADT Commercial’s legal team and strategy, Moore held various legal leadership roles at Carrier, United Technologies and Lennox.  Julie Perkinson-Carpenter, Chief Human Resources Officer Perkinson-Carpenter has over 25 years of experience as a creative and collaborative HR professional. Her recent role was Vice President, Human Resources at ADT, and she has held various leadership positions within ADT over her career. Beth Tarnoff, Chief Marketing Officer Tarnoff has been an award-winning marketing leader in the commercial security space for nearly 20 years, and most recently held the position of Vice President, Marketing & Communications for ADT Commercial. Prior to ADT Commercial, she led marketing programs at STANLEY Security and HSM Security.  Jay Robertson, Sr. Vice President, Organisation Transition Robertson is a 20-plus year veteran of the security industry, spending most of his career at ADT and Protection 1. He most recently served as the Sr. Vice President, Product Management for ADT Commercial, and prior to that, held the position of Sr. Vice President, Product Marketing for ADT. Ed Bacco, Vice President, Emerging Technologies Bacco brings more than 30 years of security management, physical security and project management experience and expertise to his role with Everon. He previously held the same position with ADT Commercial, and throughout his career has served in leadership roles for Aronson Security Group, Amazon and the National Transportation Security Operation Centre. Author's quote “Over the years, I’ve witnessed firsthand the value that these leaders can bring — not only to our organization, but the industry as a whole,” Bresingham continued. “Their experience, expertise, and determination are unmatched, and I know they’ll be central to our success at Everon." Customer-driven service excellence Everon was built over the last decade by some of the most trusted names in commercial security. In that time, teams remained focused on providing comprehensive, scalable solutions to address the unique needs of mid-market, national and large-scale organisations, and established a new industry standard for customer-driven service excellence and delivery.  With GTCR’s acquisition of ADT Commercial in October 2023, Everon has emerged as an innovator and service excellence champion protecting commercial people, property, and assets across industries.

The Monitoring Association (TMA) welcomed the Seattle WA Community Safety & Communications Centre (CSCC), The Bell County TX Communications Centre, and the Crawford County Department of Public Safety, which are the 128th, 129th and 130th Emergency Communications Centres (ECCs) in the United States to implement the Automated Secure Alarm Protocol (ASAP). Launched in 2011 as a public-private partnership, TMA’s ASAP service is designed to increase the accuracy and efficiency of calls for service from alarm monitoring centres to Emergency Communication Centres (ECCs). The Seattle WA CSCC became the 6th ECC in the state of Washington to implement ASAP. The Centre went live with: Vector Security, Rapid Response Monitoring, Guardian Protection, Securitas, Security Central, DynaMark Monitoring, Affiliated Monitoring, Tyco (Johnson Controls), Vivint, Brinks Home Security, National Monitoring Centre, Securitas (Stanley Div), Protection One and ADT during the week of June 5th. Implement the ASAP Bell Communications Centre became the 15th ECC in the state of Texas to implement the ASAP The Bell County TX Communications Centre became the 15th ECC in the state of Texas to implement the Automated Secure Alarm Protocol (ASAP). The ECC went live the week of June 13, 2023, with Vector Security, Rapid Response Monitoring, Vivint, DynaMark Monitoring, Security Central, Securitas (Stanley Div), Tyco (Johnson Controls), United Central Control, Protection One, Affiliated Monitoring, Securitas, Brinks Home Security, National Monitoring Centre, Alert 360, and Guardian Protection. ADT is planning to go live in the next few weeks. The Crawford County Department of Public Safety became the 7th ECC in the state of Pennsylvania to implement the Automated Secure Alarm Protocol (ASAP). The ECC went live the week of June 19, 2023, with: Rapid Response Monitoring, Vector Security, Johnson Controls, Securitas (Stanley Div), Securitas, Quick Response, Doyle Security, DynaMark Monitoring, United Central Control, Protection One, National Monitoring Centre, Vivint, Brinks Home Security, Guardian Protection, Affiliated Monitoring and ADT.

Qumulex is a new startup with a mission to provide physical security integrators a transition path to embrace the technology of the cloud and a subscription-based business model. Qumulex’s products seek to provide capabilities to embrace the cloud without an integrator having to turn their back completely on the ‘transactional revenue’ of installing new systems. As the transition happens, Qumulex offers a product line that supports any mix of systems from on-premises to the cloud. The flexible deployment model – enabling a cloud installation, an on-premise installation or any combination – is one of the ways Qumulex seeks to differentiate itself in the market. Installing fully on-premise system The Qumulex cloud-based platform uses a gateway device located on-premises to which local cameras are connected The system is designed so that an integrator can install a fully on-premise system and then later ‘flip a switch’ and transition to a cloud model, says Tom Buckley, VP Sales and Marketing. The Qumulex initial 1.0 system launch is currently entering its final beta test. Full commercial availability is expected in the first quarter of 2020, which the company will highlight in a bigger 20x20 booth at ISC West next year. The Qumulex cloud-based platform uses a gateway device located on-premises to which local cameras are connected. Ensuring cybersecurity, the gateway provides a ‘firewall’ of sorts to avoid any cybersecurity threat from entering an enterprise through a vulnerable IP camera. The system is designed to be ‘cloud-agnostic’ and to work with any public or private cloud, using Docker software and ‘containers,’ a standard unit of software that packages code and all its dependencies so an application runs quickly and reliably from one computing environment to another. At launch, the Qumulex system will use the Google cloud. Greater situational awareness The open platform approach will enable users to assemble best-of-breed solutions Another point of differentiation for the new platform is a unified access control and video surveillance environment – both are part of the same program. Access control can drive video events and vice versa for greater situational awareness. A unified system avoids having to integrate separate systems. A big emphasis for Qumulex is ease of use. They have designed the user interface to be as simple and intuitive as possible, using consumer-oriented systems such as Nest and the Ring Doorbell as a model of simplicity. Finally, the open platform approach will enable users to assemble best-of-breed solutions. Keeping it simple, the system offers native integration with only the major camera manufacturers that represent most of the market: Axis, Hanwha, Arecont, Panasonic, Vivotek and Sony. Longer-term storage Other cameras can be included using the ONVIF interface. On the access control side, the system will initially be compatible with Axis door controllers, Allegion wireless door locks and ASSA ABLOY Aperio wireless door locks. Future versions of the software will seek to integrate HID Edge and Vertx and eventually Mercury panels. The gateway device may incorporate only a solid-state drive (SSD) for buffering Qumulex is taking a ‘mobile-first’ approach. The software is designed as a ‘progressive web app,’ which means is it is adaptable to – and fully functioning in – any smart phone, mobile device, laptop, or on a desktop computer with multiple monitors. The gateway device may incorporate only a solid-state drive (SSD) for buffering, or as many hard drives as the customer wants for storage. Short-term storage is available in the cloud, but local hard drives may be used for longer-term storage which can get expensive given the monthly fees of cloud storage. Using third-party server To manage the variety of scenarios, Qumulex will offer a line of gateways and recorders, or a customer can use a third-party server along with Qumulex, which is an open system. Qumulex will use a manufacturer’s representative sales model and has already signed up 11 rep firms covering the United States (the initial target of the launch). The company has been spreading the word among integrators, too, first at the ISC West show last spring, when 98 integrators saw demonstrations of the system at a suite in the Palazzo. Another 48 integrators saw the system at ESX in Indianapolis in June. At the recent GSX show in Chicago, Qumulex had a booth on the show floor, where they scanned 450 badges that yielded 176 unique integrators. Entering the physical security market Qumulex just closed a second round of funding, which does not include any ‘institutional’ money Buckley estimates there are around 10,000 total security integrators in the United States that sell products similar to theirs at their price point. They are working to build their database to reach out to those integrators. (Exacq had more than 4,500 dealer/integrators before it was sold to Tyco/Johnson Controls.) Qumulex is the third company to enter the physical security market by the same team that launched two other successful startups in the last 20 years: Exacq Technologies (sold to Tyco in 2013) and Integral Technologies (sold to Andover Controls in 2000). Both previous companies were built around a need to help the integrator community transition to newer technologies. Qumulex just closed a second round of funding, which does not include any ‘institutional’ money. The first round of investment involved only the founders, and the second round added some ‘angel’ investors to the mix. The funding allows more flexibility and control over the company’s timeline and the evolution of the product’s feature set, free of outside mandates, says Buckley.

As physical security systems increasingly resemble the architecture of an IT (information technology) network, the cybersecurity risks are increasing. Sometimes hacks in physical security go unrecognised because of poor detection. Here's part two of our Cybersecurity series.  Going forward, the physical security industry should adopt the same principles as the information security market, embracing new elements such as risk assessment and certifications. A change in culture is needed to align and embrace cybersecurity and make necessary improvements, says Terry Gold of D6 Research. Independent testing and access control There are signs of progress. Increasingly, access control systems today are designed to be more cyber-resilient and are tested extensively to discover and address any vulnerabilities. Data capture form to appear here! For example, the latest version of Tyco’s C-Cure 9000 undergoes independent testing to discover and address any critical vulnerabilities, and new firmware and software updates are tested to ensure they do not open any ‘back doors.’ Tyco’s Cyber Protection Program is part of the company’s ‘holistic approach’ to supplying customers with quality solutions. If cybersecurity is managed properly, the new wave of access control systems are as secure as previous systems. In some cases, more secure. For example, the new generation of smart cards, such as MiFARE DesFIRE EV1 or EV2 and HID iCLASS SEOS, use protocols that are much safer than the last generation Wiegand systems. New secure protocols such as OSDP version 2 are a better alternative to Wiegand. The new wave of access control systems are more secure than previous systems and use protocols that are much safer than the last generation Protocols for wireless electronic locks Wireless electronic locks use security protocols such as encryption and authentication that prevent cybercriminals from accessing the network to get data and intercept commands. In short, the information in an IP-based access control system is at no greater risk than any other information being transmitted over the network, as long as smart decisions are made on how systems are connected and data is transmitted and stored. Standards are one approach to ensure a minimum level of cybersecurity for physical security products and systems. For example, Underwriters Laboratories (UL) seeks to work with manufacturers to up their game on cybersecurity and to certify compliance to a minimum level of cybersecurity ‘hygiene.’ Requirements for software cybersecurity The UL Cybersecurity Assurance Program (CAP) has developed the UL 2900-1 standard, which offers General Requirements for Software Cybersecurity for Network-Connectable Products. It was published in 2016 and in July 2017 was published as an ANSI (American National Standards Institute) standard. The standard was developed with cooperation from end users such as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), U.S. National Laboratories, and other industry stakeholders. UL 2900-2-3 – the standard that focuses on electronic physical security/Life Safety & Security industry, was published in September 2017. Cybersecurity should be an element in physical security as the risk for data to be physically removed from a building is greater than ever Physical security integral to cybersecurity Not only should cybersecurity be an element in physical security, the reverse is also true: Physical security should be seen as integral to cybersecurity. Looking at the intersection of cybersecurity and physical security from this opposite angle uncovers a world of opportunity to make the enterprise safer. Physical risks to cybersecurity include insider and outsider threats, poor or non-existent screening, and the presence of a seemingly innocent personal item. Off-the-shelf devices such as SD cards, external hard drives, audio recorder and even smart phones can be used to transport audio, video and/or computer data into and out of a building. For the private and public sectors, the risk for data to be physically removed from a building is greater than ever, and physical security systems can protect against this vulnerability. Missed part one of our Cybersecurity series? Click here. Part three, coming soon.

Effective access control can be achieved without the use of cards using a new generation of secure facial authentication enabled by artificial intelligence and machine learning. Alcatraz AI is introducing a system that deploys a sensing device, about the size of a badge reader, with multiple colour and infrared cameras that can detect facial features and confirm an identity. Real-time 3D facial mapping avoids anyone using a photograph, video or mask to spoof the system and confirms there is a real person that matches the stored facial image. System helps in tailgating mitigation Deep neural networks, powered by NVIDIA, enable the system to achieve new levels of frictionless access control, says Vince Gaydarzhiev, CEO of Alcatraz AI. Computer processing is achieved at the edge to ensure speedy and secure access control. We saw an opportunity to create a system that solves issues of tailgating and addresses the need for security without increasing friction"“We saw an opportunity to create a system that solves issues of tailgating and addresses the need for security without increasing friction,” says Gaydarzhiev. The accuracy of the system lessens the need for security guards, he says. The Silicon Valley startup, currently with 20 employees, was founded in early 2016 by a team from Apple, NVIDIA and Lily Robotics with a goal of targeting mid- to large-sized corporations that currently have deployed badging systems. The company has raised close to $6M from venture capital firms and individuals, and Johnson Controls/Tyco has invested in the startup. Alcatraz AI’s sensor device, mounted near a door, confirms a user’s identity and communicates the user’s badge number to the existing access control infrastructure. “The system improves the facial profile every time, using the neural network to be even more accurate in the future,” says Gaydarzhiev. He says it is the industry’s first “instant one-factor authentication for multi-person in-the-flow sensing.” The system is less expensive than previous facial authentication systems and does not require users to be very close to the reader Easy enrolment and deployment Enrolment in the system is easy. Companies can deploy a separate enrolment station, or any reader can be used for enrolment. After badging in a couple of times, the face matching system “enrols” the face with the associated badge number, thus allowing the user to dispense with the badge altogether. In the future, the frictionless system simply recognises the user and opens the door. A user company can quickly deploy the system at locations where thousands of employees have access, without requiring employees to go to HR for enrolment. Gaydarzhiev says accuracy of the system is no less than that of iris scanning, and the accuracy is configurable for specific needs. He says the system is less expensive than previous facial authentication systems and does not require users to be very close to the reader. Facial authentication is also more flexible than iris scanning or fingerprinting. Detecting intent from positioning of eyes The system detects intent from the positioning of the eyes and body to avoid opening a door unintentionallyIn contrast to near field communication (NFC) or Bluetooth systems, the technology does not require a compatible smart phone or have issues of communication range. There is no need for users to stop and perform an action or gesture to signal intent. The system detects intent from the positioning of the eyes and body to avoid opening a door unintentionally, says Gaydarzhiev.  Alcatraz AI is targeting high-tech enterprises, including healthcare, government and eventually banks. Currently they have three pilot installations among large global software companies and are undergoing trials with some government agencies. Today, they sell direct to end users, but the intent is to develop a dealer channel that will account for most of the sales.