Beyond the Camera: What Physical Security Actually Does for Your Community (with Aaron Zylla)

Most organizations think physical security means hanging a camera and calling it a day. 

Aaron Zylla, Senior Physical Security Engineer at High Point Networks, says that's the most dangerous assumption you can make. In this episode, Aaron breaks down what a real physical security strategy actually looks like, why it matters far beyond your building's front door, and how the right systems are actively making communities safer right now.

✨ In this episode: 

→ Why "physical access is total access" 

→ The three Ds of physical security: detect, delay, and deny 

→ How automation and AI are replacing walls of monitors 

→ NDAA compliance — and why your cameras might not be legal 

→ License plate recognition and real-time crime centers 

→ How to budget for physical security without chasing the shiny stuff 

→ Where to start if you can't do everything

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🗨️ Mentioned in this episode:

→ CPTED — Criminal Prevention Through Environmental Design, a framework for reducing crime through the physical environment 

→ NDAA — National Defense Authorization Act; federal legislation restricting certain foreign-manufactured technology in critical infrastructure and government settings

 → ShotSpotter — acoustic gunshot detection technology 

→ Evolv — weapons detection system

→ Flock — license plate recognition platform

→ Genetec / Axis — LPR and security camera platforms

Connect with Aaron: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronzylla/ | aaron.zylla@highpointnetworks.com

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🕑 Timestamps:

0:00 - Introduction & welcome 

3:44 - Physical access is total access: where to start 

6:21 - The three Ds: detect, delay, and deny 

10:04 - Security operations centers and the role of automation 

11:29 - Cameras beyond surveillance: NDAA compliance explained 

13:26 - License plate recognition and community safety 

17:09 - Federating cameras with your city's real-time crime center 

19:21 - Access control: more than just getting in the door 

22:56 - How physical security impacts communities 

26:04 - Advanced tech: thermal cameras, fence detection, and more 

29:03 - Where to start and how to budget for physical security

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New episodes every other Wednesday.

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Get to the Point is produced by High Point Networks for informational purposes only. Guests include High Point Networks professionals as well as subject matter experts from across the industry, each speaking from their own experience and expertise. Content shared is intended as general information and should be evaluated within the context of your specific organization and circumstances. Views expressed by outside guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of High Point Networks or its affiliates. High Point Networks assumes no liability for decisions or actions taken based on content discussed in this podcast.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Good morning, sir.

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Good morning.

SPEAKER_00 0:03

I'm so glad you're here. And you're wearing your lucky podcast socks.

SPEAKER_01 0:07

I'm wearing my lucky podcast socks. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

So I'd like to ask you a question.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Ask away.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

So most of us assume that if we put up a camera in our business, we're secure. But what if that is the most dangerous assumption we can make?

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Interesting question. So today on Get to the Point, we're gonna dig into FISEC, physical security.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Ooh, didn't FISA. You've been thinking about that. I know, right?

SPEAKER_01 0:39

I want been wanting to use a lot of FISEC extra. Sounds cool. Um, and what is it really? And we'll dig in a little bit behind the scenes on what else is it besides just hanging up a camera?

SPEAKER_00 0:54

And what impact it can have in communities as well.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

And I love that.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

This is Get to the Point. We're getting pretty good at that.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

We're getting so good at that.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

All right, welcome to the Get to the Point podcast. Uh the podcast where we talk to real IT people about real IT stuff. And we dig into the why behind the tech that's just all around us, and we try to make it a little bit more human. I'm Andy Middlemas.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

And I'm Brandy Mentley. Joining us today is Aaron Zilla, senior physical security engineer here at High Point Networks. He's been here since 2017. Aaron designs and deploys video surveillance, access control, and wireless solutions and brings systems thinking to connect physics and brings the systems, if I can read that correctly, thinking to connect physical security with the broader technology environment organizations rely on every day. Thank you for being here, Erin. Tell me something good.

SPEAKER_02 1:57

Well, thank you for having me. Uh something good. It's springtime in Colorado Springs. It's absolutely stunning. Bright, sunny skies, snow on the mountain. It can be 35 degrees in the morning and it'll hit 60, 70 in the midday. So you can have t-shirt and shorts all day. It's just gorgeous.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

I love that. Before we get going here, I have a fun story to share about Aaronzilla.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

Oh, good. I can't wait.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

So, do you remember way back when I saw you at a career fair at Dakota State University? Oh, that's a lot of fun. Myself and Joe Galinanus went to a career fair. You came to our booth, you gave us your uh, you know, resume, and we came back and we started, you know. People don't do this, but they do, you know, put A, B, C, kind of like, hey, these are the people, these are the interns we want to bring in. And you were one of those interns, and you got hired on, and obviously here we are today together. So I've known you a long time, and you're a wonderful person, and it has been an absolute joy watching you grow into the man that you are and into the position that you have here. I've just enjoyed watching you and and your skills as you've, you know, kind of become a leader in the physical security space. So I wanted to share that story just because I've known you for a long time. You're that's pretty kind of special to me.

SPEAKER_02 3:19

And you know, I almost didn't make it because I missed the interview. Because I thought the interview was happening outside of town and it wasn't. And I had to call and fess up to it and be like, uh, we need to reschedule. And so thank you for uh for doing that because this almost wasn't.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

I love it. I'm glad.

SPEAKER_02 3:35

What grade did you write at the top of his paper?

SPEAKER_01 3:37

By the way, he got an A. Oh, okay. Just really.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Yeah, you got an A. Yeah. I love that. No, that is a true story.

SPEAKER_01 3:43

Very good. I don't get very many A's. It's nice to sneak one in every now and then. That's quickly. Um, so let me let's dive into our topic for today. Physical security or FISAC, as I like to say, FISAC. Sounds like the whole time. I am totally using that. So you know there's just all always a buzz today about cybersecurity and protecting ourselves in the cyberspace. And a lot of companies spend a lot of time and energy and money focusing on that. Kind of parallel to that, this whole concept of physical security. So, you know, I think to Brandy's opening comment here, I think people think of that as a product or a, I'm gonna hang a camera here, and that's my that's my physical security, my FISEC strategy.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Sorry, can't get it. Someone count the amount of times he's gonna say that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

So just general commentary on, you know, how do you get started with that? I mean, should you just should you look at it as a set of products or solutions? What's the approach that a company should take when they start thinking about protecting themselves in the physical world?

SPEAKER_02 4:57

Well, and you mentioned that cybersecurity component is really important and that companies spend a lot of money on that. And sometimes that FISEC uh area gets a little ignored. See, I used it. Do not encourage this. And this is what I learned at DSU back in the day is uh one of my professors said that physical access is total access. That if you have the best physical uh cybersecurity in the world, it doesn't matter if your doors aren't locked and somebody can walk in and be a bad actor in your environment. Um, and so the first things that you need to think about is what are you wanting to protect in those the three categories. You've got people, places, and things, right? Are you protecting your staff? Are you protecting your customers? Are you protecting your building from vandalism, robbery, theft? And then the things is your network infrastructure, your intellectual property, all of those categorize into those, um, what you're trying to protect. You need to identify what those are and then what those have those values to you. You know, obviously staff is always the most important staff, customers, people, that people is always the most valuable. But then the property and things, you need to just, you know, decide on what those are value to you and your organization.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Very cool.

SPEAKER_02 6:05

Yeah, love that.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Yeah. So once you know who needs protecting and why, tell me about what a real system looks like. Are there specific building blocks? Like tell tell me where you start.

SPEAKER_02 6:16

I mean, there's several, several building blocks to physical physical security. And um, and then that brings you into like the three D's as they're called in the industry. It's detect, deny, or detect, delay, and deny. So you can do you know, once you identify your objects and what needs protecting, you can determine maybe the local police department has a response time of three minutes. So then your goal is to delay a bad actor for three minutes so that police can respond. Or there are some areas that you need to fully deny access to. And so you're talking levels and layers of security on top of each other. Obviously, you've got cameras. Cameras operate in that detect space. You can always detect. Um, cameras also help with your delay space as well, because a bad actor could see a camera and be delayed by that or have to think about it. When building on delay, you've got fences, you've got locked doors, you've got armed security, you've got all of those layers upon layers upon layers. And then that deny level is more authorized entry areas where you have manned guards holding doors, you have man traps, other ways you can configure your secure environment to deny access to those areas.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Interesting. Wow, I just learned something. Man traps. You said man trap.

SPEAKER_02 7:30

Yeah.

unknown 7:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:31

Man trap falls under the category of septed, which is um it's criminal prevention through environmental design. And so you can, you know, target, you got the big red balls at the front, those are concrete balls. Those are there specifically to prevent somebody from ramming a vehicle through the front of their store. But they look cool.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

They well, yeah, and you wouldn't have thought that. Like when you were talking about delaying a criminal for three minutes, right? Like there's a lot of thought that goes into that. I love that first stamp planning phase, or just, you know, the deeper thought that goes into just slapping a lock on a door and calling it a day, right? That is pretty cool. Uh is there lighting or anything like that that can play a role into this? Any sort of automation, um, just kind of in this ecosystem. Tell me how that plays into it.

SPEAKER_02 8:16

And you'll see this at a lot of uh gas stations across the country now. They'll have automated lighting and sound systems attached to their cameras. Um, so those are put more into the detection and delay. I've seen even a dumpster out back of a customer of ours where the camera detects somebody at three in the morning, hey, you're being recorded and we will be calling the police. So you should stop dumping in our trash can, right? That's the implication that helps delay those incidents from happening. You've got the automation levels where you can send out emails, you can do alerts. That automation is what allows the camera to send a message to your speaker system, allows the camera then to tell the lighting to turn on. Um, that automation these days is uh the the buzzword is a force multiplier, right? If you have got one security guard managing, you know, an entire campus, that automation allows for more things to happen in the background on their own and not require a human element every day, every hour.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

That is actually a beautiful segue because I have this, I have this image in my mind. You know, back in the day, you have a you know a big hotel or a big casino or you know, a metro transit, you know, system, et cetera. And you've got you know a giant wall of displays and you know, a whole bunch of people there, you know, watching things and taking notes and making calls, et cetera. And I imagine that that has evolved uh a lot with the introduction of AI and automation, et cetera, where I don't have to have 35 people there watching a whole bunch of displays. I've probably got some interesting stuff happening in the background. Can you give us some examples of where you've seen that do some interesting things?

SPEAKER_02 9:54

Absolutely. Um, so that's called in the industry as a sock, an SOC, a security operations center. You can absolutely imagine video walls NASA style almost think the Apollo movies, um, where you have a huge video wall, you have lots of staff managing it, but you know, your camera views might be six inches wide by six inches, and you're watching 300 feeds all at once. There is no way any human on the planet can do that. The automation allows us to set up thresholds and triggers and bring certain feeds live when there's an incident occurring in our view, and it allows you to get better granular details out of your system. We have a customer of ours, uh, the city of Pueblo, has their real-time crime center in their dispatch center. They have a video wall with all of these cameras across most of the city. And when calls come in, when incidents occur, um, we can see that live. And police and dispatch are able to respond to it very quickly because of this level of extra automation on top of all of the security equipment.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

So, you know, we've all seen the crime shows, Erin, where the police show up, whatever robbery might have occurred or something has occurred, the video cameras are all hanging up and they're like, well, they don't work, or they're just for show. Um, you know, honing in on the cameras specifically, they're more than just surveillance. And so, and I also think that there's this level, uh, I looked this up, by the way. I had to. National Defense Authorization Act. And you know a lot about that. And so I want you to share that information with others. So cameras more than surveillance, and sometimes there is this kind of compliance aspect that people may not know about. Can you walk us through that?

SPEAKER_02 11:40

We have a lot to unpack on that one.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

All right.

SPEAKER_02 11:42

All right. So the first thing I want to say is uh Hollywood, zoom and enhance, it's fake. I have been asked in my professional career to do zoom and enhance, and I had to explain to the the customers um that's not how cameras work. I can't do that. I'm sorry. Um the net the next point I want to uh bring up that you mentioned is that cameras being just for show. You do want to be careful about that. There have been organizations sued for having fake cameras because it gave the implication that they were tracking an area and it gave a false sense of security. So that is a thing you want to be careful about in your particular municipality. Um it is kind of state and local specific on that one, but just be aware of that. When it comes to the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act, uh, there is an act about critical infrastructure. So if you're a utilities organization, if you're critical infrastructure, any government agency, you're not allowed to have products manufactured in China because of the concerns with the Chinese military involvement. Um, so the NDAA compliance is extremely important for any of those industries. Uh, we have ripped out a lot of Chinese cameras from water utilities, electric utilities. They have these cameras that they're just not allowed to have, and that affects their funding overall. Um, it's it's an important thing to do, uh, just to make sure that you're compliant with your your government regulations.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

Interesting. I know in some cities there's there's a lot of kerfluffle. I like that word. Kerfluffle around, like the flock uh camera deployments. Is that is that related to that or is that a different one?

SPEAKER_02 13:13

Flock cameras are an interesting, they are a cloud-based LPR system, so license plate recognition. So they're solar, they're cell, and their cloud, and they all go to the company Flock. They put their cameras up. It's a subscription model, they're very expensive. Um, there's been uh some controversy over them with how they have their data and how they share it to particular agencies, and they've been known to advertise customer engagement without that customer being knowledgeable of it.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 13:44

So there was some controversy there. Um, a lot of other companies provide the same services. LPR cameras are extremely common. Um, Genitech is one. Access has their own LPR cameras, um, and they allow governments or organizations to track license plates coming and going to their facilities. On the government side, it allows you to use the criminal national databases for hot lists. So when that amber alert hits your cell phone, companies like Flock and Genitech, they their cameras can be searched for those license plate hits and help law enforcement find those individuals related to that Amber alert.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

Yeah, that's interesting. I've seen just a couple of interesting cases where kind of the AI and the automation and all of the back-end stuff comes together too, uh specific to the city of Pueblo. I know a couple of cases where they knew that someone that was on their watch list had entered town because they had vehicle description and a partial license plate. And they were able to figure out, hey, here's everywhere that that car was seen. Absolutely. And they're able to, they were able to track that person down and apprehend them very, very quickly. The other thing that I uh that they were uh working on was I think it was the courthouse where they have some uh detection uh that says, hey, alert someone in security if someone leaves a package behind, concerns about bomb threat or whatever, I suppose. I mean any number of threats on that. Any number of threats.

SPEAKER_02 15:06

And things like that. Interesting. On those uh databases, when that amber alert hits, a lot of these systems are automated in the back end, and those municipalities will get an automated alert saying, hey, an amber alert was triggered, and this plate was already seen in your area. So that level of automation really improves law enforcement response when there's critical incidents.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

Coordination between departments, absolutely between cities and industries. Very interesting. The other thing I thought was really interesting, I think maybe the first time we saw some of this, I don't think it was very advanced at the time, was uh like the Boston Marathon thing where they were able to piece together these people who were who were the bombers, I guess. And where were they and where were they going? You know, it was a bit of more of a manual process then, but that's like you can fully automate that now. Hey, there's a guy with a brown shirt and a yellow hat. We're definitely moving that direction.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

Um, just about every camera these days will have AI just at the base level in the camera. Um, you can identify that that color of clothing on an individual and then search the rest of your entire system for that. Yeah, um, I actually have some of these cameras in my house, and there was a hit and run just outside my house. And the I have my system registered with the city, and I had an officer knock on my door and I ask, hey, I'm looking for a yellow truck that's damaged. I was able to go back in the system and search for yellow truck in the past seven days that drove past my house, and I gave him the footage. Here's every yellow vehicle that ran past my house in the last seven days. And that took me maybe 15 minutes to do. That is interesting.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

I didn't have to sit there and watch every second of every clip. That is so so drill in on that for just a second because I think this is something that a lot of people don't aren't aware of. Sort of this ability as a community to participate in, say, like a real-time crime center, et cetera, where you can say, hey, I have some cameras. Well, certainly. I'll make that part of the network and part of the intelligence of what's going on. Talk a little bit about it. Federation, I think they call that.

SPEAKER_02 16:59

Most uh municipalities will have larger ones. I don't, I'm not sure, you know, on any if there's a threshold for what city gets something like a real-time crime center. Um, but most cities will have some sort of community engagement program. The city of Pueblo is doing that with their population. And you can basically just sign up and saying, here's my name and number and address, and here's how many cameras I have outside my house, and that's it, right? So the base level is I have cameras. And so if an incident happens around me, you can come knock on my door and I'll see what I have. For smaller business owners, there's that federation that you brought in. Um, depending on the system that your municipality is running, you could integrate some of your exterior cameras into the city's overall system. So uh there is a uh a company we have downtown Pueblo that has a single camera outside their shop, and we brought that into Plebo's Real Time Crime Center. So if there's any incidents happening at that intersection, the police can bring that up live. But that that's a whole process on the back end, making sure that all the paperwork is done correctly, making sure that the business owner is cool with it, the city is signing off on it. Um, and then there's got to be like a proper demarcation point of like who's responsible for what on that hardware.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

Interesting, very cool. A lot going on there. Yeah, as you said, a lot to unpack. Oh, there is so much.

SPEAKER_02 18:15

And even with the the city hall, uh, we have that weapons detection system evolve. Um, and that's can detect uh weapons coming and going into the property and can alert to dispatch as well. So you kind of alluded to that a little bit. Um that's just again those layers upon layers of security. So yeah, there's a guard there that can see that happening, but dispatch is alerted at the same time, and so that speeds up the response.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

Yeah, interesting. So we've talked a bunch about cameras, the visual aspect, the stuff that happens behind the scenes. So let's switch to access control for a second. And I kind of think of this as you know, you show up at the nightclub at night, and there's, you know, they got the red velvet rope, and there's a big, scary-looking guy with, you know, I don't know why he's wearing sunglasses, it's nighttime, but you know, he is. And, you know, he's he's he's the access control guy. And you know, if Brandy shows up, she's probably gonna get in because you know, she's Brandy. But I'm they're not gonna let me in if I'm not on the list. So you've got somebody there who's making decisions about do you get into the club or not? I guess you could equate that to can you access the building? Yep, but a real access control strategy goes way beyond that. Can you just talk about that? Maybe you got to bounce your following around once you're in the club and go, nope, the VIP room, yep, not on the list. Nope, that's the kitchen, get it going there, employees only. Right. Just lay us out a little bit of a broader plan besides just getting access to the building.

SPEAKER_02 19:48

What's a good strategy look like an access control falls under the the delay and deny aspects to physical security? And so you would have a user credential. It could be a badge, a cell phone, a QR code, and or facial recognition if you want to get, you know, scary big brother. And that allows you, you're granted access to certain areas. Like that bouncer is like, okay, yeah, you're you're allowed to be here. That can also be on a schedule. You know, that same nightclub, you can't show up at 10 in the morning, doors locked, you can't get in. There's nobody there to let you in. Um, so your same thing on access control, you can be on schedules. And so certain staff don't need to be there during the day. So if you have janitorial staff, they don't need to be there during the working hours. So you can make sure that they're only allowed five to five to 11 p.m. or something like that. Janitorial don't need to get into IT closets. And so you're allowed to break all of those components up on where they're allowed to be. The detect part of access control is when you have door sensors. So a door gets opened, and maybe the door's open for too long. Somebody threw a shoe in the door to hold the door open, you can start getting alerts and automations, pull up a live camera feed and see why is that door open, what's going on. The detect part also, if the door is forced open. So if somebody breaks into the door, if somebody didn't scan their badge like they were supposed to, um, again, more automation and that detection to allow for quicker response times.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

Wow, that's amazing. A lot of stuff. It is, you know, and you had talked a little bit about we tapped into some of the personal stories or just some of the impacts that it can have on a community. I know my really good friend, whom I love and adore, Mr. Anderson. He's not my friend, he's my fiance. Anyway, he's your friend too.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

So I mean it depends on the days.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

He is my BFF too. Yeah, he is. Um, yeah. I mean, I just know the stories, like, you know, they manage and own gas stations, right? His family. And so they have cameras. And there have been times where they have to go back to that footage. You know, there was an incident actually outside of their gas station where a young girl was filling up with gas and a gentleman with a gun and another lady took her car, right? And so that footage is important in helping law enforcement. Which direction did they go? Which so I I think People think, you know, kind of the small, you know, hey, I not that it's small to think about protecting your organization, but there's like so many more layers of how it can affect the community. I know we've tapped on the real-time crime center stuff, but can you share some stories, just you know, how these affect communities, how they can help communities, because I think those are important too. That these aren't just you know equipment that we, you know, hang up and hope that it works. It can actually, you know, communicate or we can actually help the community.

SPEAKER_02 22:30

Well, absolutely. And this is the people part of the physical security. And, you know, and I mentioned customers are extremely important. Customers are your community, right? They're they are both community and customers. And if an incident like that happens and you have no way to track what happened, to prove it happened, there's largely no recourse for a lot of people. Uh, you having that footage of that incident occurring allowed the police to identify the individuals, allowed them to identify the car, and actually gave them something to work off of. So many times, a lot of these that's not a small incident, but small incidents can get completely overlooked because there's just not enough data to actually track down the bad actor. This is extremely important in a lot of these cases. I see it all the time with the city of Pueblo, the city of Colorado Springs, there's individuals affected by petty crime that aren't being handled. There is a great incident in uh Pueblo itself where cameras that we had just installed were actually used to catch two felons. This is a combination, again, those layers of security. So the city has something called shot spotter. So all across the city, it can see where gunfire is happening off. It can identify down to about three foot radius, identify the caliber of the weapon and how many shots were shot off. Well, they were able to see that brand new cameras were just down the street from where the shots came out. So they were able to aim the camera in their direction, found two felons drinking alcohol, smoking weed, shooting firearms into the sky out of their car, parked on the street, and police were able to show up and apprehend them. And they found firearms with scratched off serial numbers, you name it. So just a week after we installed these cameras that we were able to help the local law enforcement apprehend these two guys.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

Well, and keeping that community safer. Absolutely. I mean, I think that's the thing too. I mean, we we've talked about the why behind what we're doing here, and I think I shared my why about walking through the real-time crime center. And it's just how it affects people, how it affects communities, and how it keeps you so much safer. Um, you know, again, there's this illusion of safety. I get that. There's always going to be bad actors, whether it's cyber or, you know, that's just the world we live in, right? But I I just love those stories because I think, you know, again, there's this cyber buzz and there should be, but there's a layer of fit, you know, security, then this physical aspect that has such a huge ripple effect. You love the ripple effect, um, has such a huge impact uh, you know, on people. And I just think that's so special. Uh, you know, it's just more than the technology.

SPEAKER_02 24:59

So and this is an interesting thing to keep in mind because cybersecurity and physical security are two sides of the same coin, just security in general. Cybersecurity is gonna be like 80% crimes of motive and 20% crimes of opportunity. Physical security is like 80% crimes of opportunity and 20% crimes of motive. Because if somebody wants to break into your environment, they're gonna figure it out. But that's so a lot of physical security is geared towards that criminal prevention through environmental design, trying to prevent that initial opportun crime of opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 25:33

Cool. Very cool. I never thought about it that way, but that makes that actually makes a lot of sense. Very cool. So we've talked about the visual aspect, the cameras, we've talked about uh detect delay deny, which I think is a cool concept. That was I learned that today. I learned that I love that. Uh, we talked a little bit about the the access control, the the bouncer analogy, right, etc. So I want to go a little bit deeper into some of the things that people don't think about. They think about the cameras, they think about the door access. So all kinds of other really interesting things. We've touched on some of it, right? The automation, the AI, the tracking of you know, a particular vehicle or a particular person, those kinds of things. But um, and you alluded to a couple of things like uh I think they call geofencing, where they're basically you know, from a visual standpoint, hey, this camera's focused on that area. Between these hours, there shouldn't be anybody in there, that type of thing, set up alerts. I've seen some, even some like radar and motion uh detections uh, you know, tied in where people should not be in, you know, certain times of the day, infrared temperatures, all kinds of beyond the expected. So give us some examples of some of the cool other tech that people are utilizing to enhance again another layer of security. Well, certainly.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

Uh, thermal cameras are a really cool one. I actually just did a design for a customer of ours who are trying to monitor for fire, actually. There's a risk of fire in some of their facilities. And so we have a couple of these thermal cameras around the environment to track temperatures and send out those automated alerts. Um, they're also extremely good at that physical perimeter defense because they don't need light. They can just see a human walking up to a fence line and you can get those extra alerting, that early work uh warning. The other interesting things is um uh there's fence cut and climb detection. Um, there's a uh a technology that runs a wire along your fence line, and one section can cover like a thousand feet of fence, and you're able to break that into 10 zones. And so you're able to tell your security system, hey, zone three is being fiddled with. Somebody's climbing it, maybe it's cut, or zones three through one all fell off. And then you can tell that that fence is being cut and fiddled with, allow for that quicker response. Um, there's microwave laser detection. You can set up, yeah. This is some cool stuff I was looking at at a conference a couple years ago, and I've uh I really want to play with it because it's look looks so cool. But you set up um it almost like a garage. You have those little lasers that the security safety lasers in your garage door, that but industrial, and you can set that up in front of your fence line, and it's pretty nondescript, so it's kind of hard to detect, and that can alert you for people approaching your fence line. There's underground sensors that you can do. There's, I mean, the amount of detection that you can implement is quite astounding. You can go kind of crazy with it.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

Well, that brings us to our last kind of topic here of this all sounds great. We need to protect ourselves from a cyber aspect, we need to protect ourselves from the physical aspect. And it's it's that balance between chasing what's shiny and what's real, right? And so this sounds expensive to me. Um it just does. How does somebody, you know, IT leaders, uh business owners, you know, out there, I know you start with what do you want to protect and why, but how do you kind of put this into the budget cycle? How do you afford, you know, the these types of protections or make the decision? You know, I know it's all about risk and evaluating your risk.

SPEAKER_02 29:13

Benefit analysis, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

And again, I know that there are some programs for you know, some of our state-local government education potentially. And so, not that I want you to go into the details of some of that additional funding, uh, but can you talk a little bit about how you would guide somebody in, you know, the fiscal journey of this and and and kind of layering that with some of the cyber, you know, priorities that they have?

SPEAKER_02 29:36

I mean, this is uh anecdotal, even. I've had a customer tell me why should I spend that amount of money on a camera when I can go to Costco for 200 bucks? And it's like, well, you get what you pay for. That $200 camera, I mean, that you don't know if that's compliant with your you know regulations. A lot of those Costco cameras, I love Costco, love it, it's great. But not many of those are NDAA compliant because they are manufactured in China. Sure. The other funding opportunities, there are multitude of federal, local, state grants that uh four municipalities, four businesses, for utility customers, uh, nonprofits have a whole process of grant writing applications. And then there's that cost-benefit analysis. Um, we have a customer of ours that put in like 90-something cameras specifically to avoid the risk of lawsuit. Uh, because if one lawsuit happened, that would pay for all of the cameras. Straight up. Um, so there's that, you know, what are you protecting? What is it worth to you? And then do you have liability that you need to cover?

SPEAKER_01 30:34

Yeah. Risk mitigation.

SPEAKER_02 30:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

If you had to give somebody, you know, here are some priorities that I would focus on first. Can you like from an organizational perspective? Like, if okay, we can't do everything. I can't do the cool lasers, right? Which does sound really cool, by the way. Anywhere that you think that they should start as far as like here's some basics.

SPEAKER_02 30:54

Cameras are always the start. Um, cameras allow you to at least track what's occurring.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 30:59

Have your record of history so that if an incident occurs, you know what happened, right? That's always the start. Cameras. The next level is access control. Make sure you're tracking who's coming and going from your facility, visitor management so that people aren't getting into areas they shouldn't be getting into. And those are those are always the two core pieces of physical security that help you get your feet off the ground. When you're doing your cameras, make sure that they have the capability to do automation. A lot of times those Costco Costco cameras can't. They might be able to send you an email, um, and that's about it. They're not going to be able to do anything else. You're not going to integrate with other systems, you're not going to be able to expand upon those automations.

SPEAKER_01 31:37

And do the cool stuff.

SPEAKER_02 31:38

And do the cool stuff. In FISAC.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

You just couldn't help yourself. I could not help. Yep, that's okay. I could not help myself. I'm feeding this.

SPEAKER_02 31:47

I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 31:47

I know you are. You are definitely encouraging this. I'm out of well, I'm not actually out of questions.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

No, you're not out of questions. I mean, I'm out of questions, or we're not out of questions.

SPEAKER_00 31:56

Erin. Uh oh. We have a surprise for you. Oh gosh. So this obscene uh bingo wheel in front of us. Would you like to spin it? Yeah. Uh so my god, that's fine. We want our listeners to get to know you on a personal level. And so we are gonna ask you a question.

SPEAKER_02 32:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

Uh well, actually, you're going to read a question. Uh well, you however accurate you want it, because you get to read it. So your choice. You can read it. You get to read it and answer it, and you get to choose whether we answer it too. Ooh.

SPEAKER_01 32:27

Okay, to trust but verify. I'm gonna read this one. I'm gonna make sure he's not just making something up. Okay. All right, all right.

SPEAKER_00 32:35

I like the trust but verify. We got our pink highlighter text. I see, that is creative. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 32:40

If you were to be on any reality or game show, which would it be and how well do you think you would do? I don't watch reality game shows. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

I watched the Mr. Beast one. Well, Mr. Beast comes up over and over here.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

Every time, yeah.

unknown 33:00

Survivor. Survivor season.

SPEAKER_00 33:01

Survivor?

SPEAKER_01 33:02

Survivor season 50. I have not watched a single episode of Survivor.

SPEAKER_00 33:06

So you have not watched one game show in your entire life.

SPEAKER_02 33:10

Oh, I suppose it says or game show.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

So I'm like, hey, like Wheel of Fortune.

SPEAKER_02 33:16

Uh I'm just gonna say the Beast Games because that's easy, and then I would probably get eliminated in like round three.

unknown 33:21

Okay. All right. All right.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

And do you want us to answer or Yes?

SPEAKER_02 33:25

I want to hear Andy's answer first. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 33:28

Okay. I like that. I'm curious. That's true. I I would want to hear Andy's answer first.

SPEAKER_01 33:31

I think I would have to go with let's make a deal. Um, because uh, you know, they get to wear fun costumes and that's true. Act like complete idiots, and that's right up my alley. You know what's right up your alley, the masked singer. Oh, that would be a good singer.

SPEAKER_00 33:47

That would be that is right up your alley.

SPEAKER_01 33:49

I changed my answer.

SPEAKER_00 33:50

Yeah. All right, okay. I like that.

SPEAKER_02 33:52

All right, Brandy, your turn.

SPEAKER_00 33:53

Okay, I've always loved, I have like a secret love for family feud. I don't know how well I would do or my how well my family would do. I would I'd probably have to be strategic about like who we pull into that, but I just love it. I think it's hilarious. And some of the answers, I'm like, Oh, some of them are great. The clips grandma.

SPEAKER_02 34:11

Did you just say that?

SPEAKER_00 34:13

But I love it. I have an obsession with it.

SPEAKER_02 34:15

So very cool.

SPEAKER_00 34:16

Yep. All right. Well, you know, if you want to hear more from us, you gotta hit the subscribe button. Follow us. Yeah, it is. I love that they moved it, by the way. Um, yes, follow us on social, hit up our website. Um, yeah, we just and again, I I said it in the last episode, but if you want to hear a specific topic related to IT or just really wanting to dig into the why around something that's going on, please drop us a comment or you know, again, we've got forms on our website. We've you should have no problem uh getting a hold of us.

SPEAKER_01 34:50

Follow us and subscribe. And thanks for being here with us today. Hope you have a great day. And remember, we're always here to help you get to the point.

SPEAKER_00 34:59

Thanks for being here. Do that so well. Do that so well.