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Neither of those are common, or practical. First, decoy recorders are extremely rare, and never really recommended. Most higher-end systems are using software

by brk 3y ago

Neither of those are common, or practical. First, decoy recorders are extremely rare, and never really recommended. Most higher-end systems are using software on a PC for the video recording, not a little NVR appliance anyway. In that case your recorder can be any random PC, potentially even hidden in plain sight. Real time offsite backups is usually not practical for reasons of upstream bandwidth limitations. A common camera can easily produce a bitstream of 2+Mbps. Get a dozen of those going, and you're bumping up against the upstream bandwidth limit of cable internet providers in the US. If you have the bandwidth for realtime offsite backups, then you can skip the on-site NVR/recorder and go with a full cloud solution like Eagle Eye (this will have a small onsite PC that acts as a buffer so that if you have a short outage of a few hours, or congestion, you don't lose video).

Teever 3y ago
Maybe these kinds of things are more commona and practical in the kinds of facilities that the article is talking about? Either way, in the city I live in most residences have 1gb up/down fiber connections. a real time offsite back up is trivial for anyone who wants to do that here.
- brk 3y ago
  They're even less common in those kinds of places (I've been involved in thousands of commercial video surveillance projects). Internet connections have certainly become more robust in recent years, and cloud video storage is becoming more common, but I don't think it even makes up 1% of the market at this point. Offsite backups, remote storage, etc. are still the exception, not the rule. Overall, the video surveillance market has many price sensitive customers. Redundancy means increased costs, it is not an easy sell, particularly when attacks on the video surveillance system/components are exceptionally rare in most cases.
  - Teever 3y ago
    Well, I bet this site is going to be getting a complete overhaul of their security systems which will probably include a real-time offsite backup.
    - brk 3y ago
      Based on my experience, they'll immediately initiate a review of things. They might plug a couple of small holes if there is anything obvious. Then the process will drag on, and the sense of urgency and concern will start to get diluted as other newer issues come up in day to day operations. They might finally get some recommendations, and if those recommendations are huge, there won't be a budget. So it'll get put into next years budget request, reviewed in a few months, and then there is a 50/50 chance they get funding approval to do anything major. During this, it will become apparent that this was an inside job, and the attackers had knowledge of the system, and thus most common hardening or mitigation procedures would be less effective against an informed attacker. Because of that, the feeling of a need to install the most robust systems with offsite backups will drop to near zero. The article doesn't even state that the video system was in fact disabled, or that they were using wifi cameras at all. Obviously, the police are not disclosing many details, it is possible that they have video from the robbery and are simply not saying it.
      - sonicanatidae 3y ago
        To anyone else wondering, this is the actual, factual take on how this will go down. Everything else is just words.

by brk 3y ago

Teever 3y ago

Maybe these kinds of things are more commona and practical in the kinds of facilities that the article is talking about? Either way, in the city I live in most residences have 1gb up/down fiber connections. a real time offsite back up is trivial for anyone who wants to do that here.

brk 3y ago
They're even less common in those kinds of places (I've been involved in thousands of commercial video surveillance projects). Internet connections have certainly become more robust in recent years, and cloud video storage is becoming more common, but I don't think it even makes up 1% of the market at this point. Offsite backups, remote storage, etc. are still the exception, not the rule. Overall, the video surveillance market has many price sensitive customers. Redundancy means increased costs, it is not an easy sell, particularly when attacks on the video surveillance system/components are exceptionally rare in most cases.
- Teever 3y ago
  Well, I bet this site is going to be getting a complete overhaul of their security systems which will probably include a real-time offsite backup.
  - brk 3y ago
    Based on my experience, they'll immediately initiate a review of things. They might plug a couple of small holes if there is anything obvious. Then the process will drag on, and the sense of urgency and concern will start to get diluted as other newer issues come up in day to day operations. They might finally get some recommendations, and if those recommendations are huge, there won't be a budget. So it'll get put into next years budget request, reviewed in a few months, and then there is a 50/50 chance they get funding approval to do anything major. During this, it will become apparent that this was an inside job, and the attackers had knowledge of the system, and thus most common hardening or mitigation procedures would be less effective against an informed attacker. Because of that, the feeling of a need to install the most robust systems with offsite backups will drop to near zero. The article doesn't even state that the video system was in fact disabled, or that they were using wifi cameras at all. Obviously, the police are not disclosing many details, it is possible that they have video from the robbery and are simply not saying it.
    - sonicanatidae 3y ago
      To anyone else wondering, this is the actual, factual take on how this will go down. Everything else is just words.