Costar, a leading video security company, has seen bold growth

02/27/2020 News Articles

Baeyumi press | Google Translate to American English from original Korean

In the physical security industry, including video security, words such as cyber security, cloud, and AI came to the fore in 2019. The age of video security is also coming now. US video security company Costar Technology, Inc. is also continuing to introduce new technologies such as cyber security into video security devices.

Costar is one of the top three video security companies in the United States. Jeff Whitney, vice president of marketing for Arecont Vision Costar (AVC or AV Costar), said, “In 2020 the industry will be paying attention to the emergence of video security products with new technologies. How to apply it to security technology will be a hot topic.” Read his story about the future development of Costar and physical security trends.

Jeff Whitney, Vice President of Marketing

Mr. Whitney said, “Costar has been a top 50 A & S Security Ranking this year because of its advanced, cybersecure, and reliable solutions.” It's a strategy with all the elements needed for the video security industry.

Costar has operations in five businesses. Among them, Mr. Whitney says that their corporate marketing is focused primarily on customers of CohuHD Costar, Costar Video Systems, and AV Costar, along with Innotech Security and IVS Imaging. Each business specifically meets the core demands of the market.

CohuHD family products meet the demands of critical infrastructure and transportation. In particular, it offers HD CCTV video surveillance camera solutions used to monitor critical and sensitive environments such as borders, ports, airports, and railways.

Costar Video Systems focuses on retail, banking, & other key markets. Costar family solutions provide step-by-step, proven solutions at the point of introduction. The system consists of video management software (VMS), surveillance cameras, network video recorders (NVRs), and digital video recorders (DVRs).

Finally, the AV Costar business is focused on cybersecurity for video surveillance. The AVC family of products, which offer a total video solution that is accessed and managed on an overall cloud basis, has led to the convergence of physical and cyber security.

Physics and Cyber are inseparable, and Costar also plans convergence

Digital transformation blurs the lines between physical and cybersecurity. In fact, countries around the world are enacting measures to apply cybersecurity to connected devices at the national level. In the United States, on September 28, 2018, California legislation approved that manufacturers of connected devices should come up with alternatives to prevent unauthorized users from accessing, destroying, using, modifying, or disclosing information. This has been in effect since January 1, 2020.

Similar movement is seen elsewhere. The UK Department of Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS) has proposed Internet-related requirements for all smart devices sold in the UK. The proposal included things like getting security quickly and working on a vulnerability.

To cope with this trend, Costar Technology is preparing a cyber security reinforcement plan. "While there was a barrier between IT security and equipment such as cameras and video recorders," said Jeff Whitney, “it no longer exists.” Costar cybersecurity is a focus the AV Costar division. Products such as ConteraVMS and ConteraWS in the AVC family provide consumers with total video solutions. These products send and receive data on a cloud basis and provide a robust cybersecurity environment. In particular, ConteraWS provides double protection of information through passwords and data encryption. The data collected by each device is linked through a cloud server, eliminating the vulnerabilities of existing networks.

Costar's video security equipment from the AV Costar division. (Data provided = Costar Technology)

■ Continued growth through partnerships with Costar and Vertical markets with core technologies

Costar, which provides both cloud-based video security and traditional surveillance solutions, was able to grow significantly through vertical markets. Costar's self-contained video security technology has secured a wide range of consumers in a variety of fields, including retail, supply chain, environment, manufacturing and telecommunications, and is still adding advanced equipment beyond its traditional security market to its portfolio.

"We are also actively working with external suppliers," said Mr. Whitney. The video security technology that Costar has secured is supporting the successful growth of its suppliers, including overseas. To this end, Costar is actively attracting partners to meet the needs of key market customers in video security and machine vision.

Mr. Whitney said that the reason for focusing on vertical markets is "to know what each consumer needs and to sustain organic growth." Having already secured the core technology necessary for the video security field, Costar is growing its sales by applying its own technology to various fields and sometimes integrating with other companies. As part of that, Costar acquired Arecont Vision in 2018 & relaunched as AVC, which led to revenue growth by attracting new customers.

Finally, he said on security trends, "the latest technologies such as AI, machine learning, deep learning, etc. will continue to be affected by the challenges of cybersecurity and whether they can be exploited by malicious behavior in any way. So cybersecurity will become more important, and the industry will increasingly adopt best practices, security procedures, employee training and training to respond to growing cyber threats."

The era of separating cyber security from physical security should be forgotten. Organic cyberphysical integration will be a key competitive advantage for the video security industry. And that's the core of Costar's total video solution.

Document online in original Korean language: https://tinyurl.com/s74qlh7