Channel Post speaks with Costa Boukouvalas, CEO at AgilityGrid about the company’s products and solutions for secure video surveillance.
Channel Post (CP): Give us a brief overview about your company.
Costa Boukouvalas (CB): AgilityGrid is a Value Added Distributor that provides IP CCTV security solutions for businesses and government bodies across the region. We have a comprehensive portfolio of video security solutions across key vertical sectors that cater to the expanding security needs of both public and private sectors.
CP: What video surveillance products do you have?
CB: We have a whole range of hardware and software solutions for video surveillance. Each product in our suite is customized to ensure that it works seamlessly with everything else. One such product Rasilient, which is a purpose-built video storage, greatly improves the performance of overall systems and we educate our partners and customers on the importance of inclusion of such products.
CP: Can you elaborate on the software solutions you have in your portfolio?
CB: We have the Snap camera tracking software, which is meant for large-scale applications with hundreds of cameras and our Viakoo video network performance software guards against systems going down. Apart from these we have Herta facial recognition software, MIMs mobile incident and workforce management software among others.
CP: What are the chief security concerns when talking about video surveillance?
CB: Historically, physical security and information security have been two completely different things. Only in the past few years they have come together. Recently, there have been incidences where hackers have hacked into camera systems and brought down websites. Hacking is one of the main concerns when it comes to video surveillance as the hacker can not only take control of the footage but can also disrupt the entire network. This affect that information security is increasingly having on the surveillance industry has made us to look not only at securing our hardware products but also driven us to create security solutions for the software as well.
CP: How do you ensure that the video feeds created are secure from hackers?
CB: To address the security concerns associated with video surveillance we were first in the region to introduce cyber security solutions for video surveillance that enabled us to constantly monitor everything on the CCTV network. There are measures in place to ensure that both hardware and software solutions are fully protected.We have filters in place that shut down the systems automatically in case of abnormal activity in the network. Our cyber security appliances act as a firewall and all the log events that indicate adverse activity in the network. Two of our partners, Viakoo and Solarwinds offer excellent software products that help monitor and harden the camera network against outside interference.
Apart from this, organisations also need to take care that they have the correct tracking and analytics tools in place. This is especially applicable where that are large installations of cameras and the organization needs to respond in a timely manner.
CP: Which industry verticals are you currently present in?
CB: Since we have a product that is reliable and does not just monitor our customer’s network but is also constantly measuring our performance, our products and solutions have strong presence in law enforcement and the Ministry of Interior. Other verticals include retail, hospitality and banking among others.
CP: Where do you see growth coming from?
CB: We are already quite strong in UAE and Qatar. Last year, business in Saudi Arabia was slow but this year it is already showing signs of improvement and should soon pick up. So the Saudi market is where we see growth coming from and that is where we intend to create an increased presence.
