Viscount Systems (VSYS)

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10k is out. A few new sections were added, that might be of some interest:


INTRUSION DETECTION SYSTEM INTEGRATION

The most clearly focused player so far in combining logical and physical access is Microsoft, which is now in a position to combine the most popular enterprise user-management tool, Active Directory, with the cloud (referred to as “Azure” by Microsoft) to provide a solution for both logical and physical access control with one infrastructure using Freedom.



Viscount is actively pursuing solutions to integrate with intrusion detection systems such as DMP and DSC. The goal is to design a unified Freedom interface that provides authentication, administration, configuration and monitoring functionalities that satisfy both access control and intrusion detection industries. The ability to activate and monitor external alarms systems and to share Freedom administrative roles and policies with IDS systems are the major themes of this endeavor.



Ongoing research and development effort has been invested in Enterprise Video System integration. Due to the diversity of Video Systems in the market, Viscount is closely working with industry experts to build a platform that can integrate with most IP based DVR systems in a unified fashion. The goal is to be able to use any DVR systems of the customers’ choosing without investing heavily in proprietary software interface. At the same time, Viscount is developing and improving its’ web based monitoring system that combines Access Control, Video and of course intrusion detection into one integrated application. Viscount carefully follows industry design guidelines in order to optimize user experience.




CYBER SECURITY



Cyber Security standards are becoming more rigorous and demanding each year and the guideline and requirements are continuously being affected and adjusted by the number of cyber security breaches that are taking place throughout the world. In light of this, Viscount is investing in a next generation cryptology hardware for the Freedom Bridge product as described below. This new design if developed, will guarantee high assurance data encryption and efficient operation throughput of the entire architecture of the Freedom PACS.



OSDP



OSDP (Open Supervised Device Protocol) is an emerging standard for Access Control Readers. With Viscount’s RS485 equipped FB-10 Freedom Bridge, Freedom server is able to manage OSDP readers on TCP/IP networks. This new generation of readers offer more high-end hardware choices to users, especially in Federal space. Efforts have been made to evaluate OSDP readers from different manufacturers. Software drivers are being developed to work with OSDP protocol. FIPS support is also within the scope of this development.



Freedom-Active Directory development in Viscount has gone through a number of revisions in the last few years. Freedom is enhancing its Access Control model to combine the best of both role based access control (“RBAC”) and attribute based access control (“ABAC”) which are used to regulate an individual’s access to the network or to perform specific tasks such as view, create, modify within applications. Freedom is leveraging these same logical access control models in order to map with Active Directory groups and directories. Because of this very tight link to Active Directory’s architecture, Viscount’s strength in the Enterprise IT space has gained considerable momentum and is peaking the interest of a few very large IT security and cyber security partners.