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Vienna Smash-and-Grab Leaves $4.3 Million Necklace Gone in Minutes
Two unmasked men bought tickets to Vienna’s Museum of Applied Arts, smashed a display case with a hammer during opening hours on 27 August, and fled with Queen Nazli’s platinum Van Cleef & Arpels necklace. The piece is set with 673 diamonds totaling more than 200 carats and sold at Sotheby’s New York in 2015 for $4.3 million. Cameras recorded the attack. The suspects remain at large. One was reported to have been carrying a firearm. No one was injured. What daylight thefts ex
Sarah o'Neill
Oct 292 min read
Opinion: Hospital Weapon Detection Is No Longer a Pilot Program
For years, hospitals talked about workplace violence in the abstract. Incident reports went up the chain, staff trainings were refreshed and signage was updated. But physical security at the front door often stayed the same. That is changing fast. Across the country, hospital security teams are being asked to solve a problem that can no longer be deferred or compartmentalized: how to prevent weapons from entering facilities that were never designed for controlled access. This
Marilyn Thaxton, North America Marketing Manager at CEIA USA
Oct 294 min read
Rising Antisemitism Drives Security Overhaul at Jewish Institutions
A sharp increase in antisemitic incidents following the escalation between Israel and Iran is forcing Jewish institutions to reassess how they secure facilities, manage access, and coordinate with law enforcement. Synagogues, schools, and community centers - traditionally designed to remain open and accessible - are now operating under sustained threat conditions that require structured, proactive security models. “I think what we’re seeing is a normalization of antisemitism
Freddie Bolton
1 day ago3 min read
Surveillance & CCTV
Rising Antisemitism Drives Security Overhaul at Jewish Institutions
A sharp increase in antisemitic incidents following the escalation between Israel and Iran is forcing Jewish institutions to reassess how they secure facilities, manage access, and coordinate with law enforcement. Synagogues, schools, and community centers - traditionally designed to remain open and accessible - are now operating under sustained threat conditions that require structured, proactive security models. “I think what we’re seeing is a normalization of antisemitism
Freddie Bolton
1 day ago3 min read
The VMS Market Is Shifting - Is Genetec Losing Strategic Ground?
The global video management systems VMS market is undergoing structural change. After years of consolidation around a relatively small group of dominant vendors, competitive differentiation is increasingly defined by openness, ecosystem breadth, cloud readiness and analytics integration. In this evolving landscape, long standing leaders are being reassessed as procurement priorities shift. Genetec built its reputation on unified security management. By combining IP video, acc
Paul Epstein
6 days ago3 min read
"Automated Gates Put Access Decisions at the Centre of Site Security"
At a distribution centre, the gate is both a security boundary and the beginning of an operational process. A vehicle arrives with an expected purpose, but someone or something must establish whether it belongs on the site, where it may go and what should happen if its details do not match the planned visit. Accelerating that decision can reduce queues. It also increases the importance of defining exactly what the system has checked before the barrier opens. Automation change
Paul Epstein
Oct 215 min read
Airport & Border Control
Paul Epstein
Oct 12
Sarah o'Neill
Oct 3
Emergency & Disaster Response
Emergency Response Tech Evolves: Intrado Pushes Cloud-Based 911
When extreme weather, wildfires, or infrastructure failures hit, the reliability of emergency communications is tested first. Local 9-1-1 centers often struggle with outdated hardware, limited staffing, and rising call volumes—pressures that make modernization less of a luxury and more of a survival need. Across the U.S., public safety agencies are under pressure to adopt technology that can cut response times, overcome language barriers, and remain operational even when netw
Freddie Bolton
Oct 142 min read
K-12 Security Still Struggles With Fragmentation Despite New ANSI Standard
Schools in the United States face the same challenge year after year: how to keep campuses safe without turning them into fortresses. From physical access controls to behavioral threat assessments, districts are juggling budget gaps, political scrutiny, and community pushback over the right mix of measures. Into this landscape, ASIS International has released a new ANSI-approved school security standard, billed as the first comprehensive framework for K-12 in the U.S. The sta
Paula Vettori
Sep 252 min read
From School Shootings to Stadium Safety: AI-Driven Screening Is the Next Layer of Physical Security
The new school year in the United States has opened with grim numbers: 47 shootings on K–12 grounds so far in 2025. That reality is driving districts to look for security measures that move faster than traditional checkpoints but avoid turning campuses into fortress-like spaces. Toronto-based Xtract One is one of the firms stepping into that demand. Its screening systems are designed to let students walk through carrying laptops and backpacks while software sorts routine item
Ellie Goldman
Sep 182 min read
Policing Tech
A Night with Drones and Digital Footprints: Two Policing Tech Stories That Hit Home
We've all seen the slick demos—hovering drones, predictive analytics, AI dashboards. But until you've watched one of those drones skip traffic jams and land a suspect in under two minutes, it’s all theory. I’ve seen two recent real-world deployments that remind security pros why relevance trumps hype. 1. The Drone That Lights the Way—Laredo, Texas In Laredo, I rode along as the local PD dispatched a BRINC drone before officers even draped on their jackets. Within 30–60 second
Freddie Bolton
Oct 182 min read
Offline-First Design And AI Workflows Reshape Body-Worn Camera Operations
As law enforcement agencies expand body-worn camera deployments, operational realities are shifting from simple video capture to resilient data management, interoperability, and post-incident automation. With high-volume footage, variable connectivity, and rising public transparency demands, system architecture increasingly determines whether evidence workflows remain reliable under stress. Modern deployments assume that connectivity will fail at critical moments. In distribu
Paula Vettori
Sep 273 min read
In the Field With Policing Tech: Two Systems That Actually Changed the Job
I’ve seen plenty of flashy demos in my career—slick PowerPoints about “next-gen policing” that never make it past the pilot phase. But every so often, you run into tech that actually shifts the ground under your feet. Two deployments I watched up close prove how different the outcomes can be when the tools work and when leadership backs them up. Case 1: License Plates That Talk Back A few years ago, I was working with a neighbourhood security committee in Fort Worth when they
Freddie Bolton
Jul 312 min read
HLS
Opinion: Closing the Edge Blind Spot - Why Physical Tamper Evidence Is the Missing Layer in IoT Security
The IoT Security Gap at the Edge, and Why Physical Tamper Evidence Matters In critical infrastructure, logistics yards, and distributed supply chains, the most dangerous IoT security weakness is often not a cloud breach. It is a blind spot at the edge, where an asset, gate, cabinet, cage, or container is opened, moved, or tampered with before anyone can verify what happened. That risk point is clear: delayed detection of unauthorized physical access. Many operators still rely
Shachar Rosiansky, VP t42
Oct 213 min read
Homeland Tech in Focus: Cell Towers, AI and Smart 911 Response
A fresh alarm has rung through U.S. government ranks: nearly two dozen FEMA IT personnel—including top CISOs—have been fired following a massive cybersecurity breach. The action was taken by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who blamed a failure to deploy basic safeguards like multifactor authentication. This stark reminder of systemic vulnerability throws homeland security tech providers into sharp relief—who they are, what they guard, and how they’re shaping resilience at the nati
Ellie Goldman
Oct 132 min read
Perimeter Security Balances Response Speed and False Alarms
# Perimeter Security Systems Balance Automated Response Against False Alarm Costs According to the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 94 to 98 percent of alarm calls turn out to be false, a reality ...
Paul Epstein
Sep 152 min read
Opinion: Hospital Weapon Detection Is No Longer a Pilot Program
For years, hospitals talked about workplace violence in the abstract. Incident reports went up the chain, staff trainings were refreshed and signage was updated. But physical security at the front door often stayed the same. That is changing fast. Across the country, hospital security teams are being asked to solve a problem that can no longer be deferred or compartmentalized: how to prevent weapons from entering facilities that were never designed for controlled access. This
Marilyn Thaxton, North America Marketing Manager at CEIA USA
Oct 294 min read
48,000 Lockdown Messages. 32 Active Shooter Ones
A notification that commits a building cannot be unsent. Once the speakers fire and the phones light, staff have already moved and responders are en route. The cost of a false alert is an evacuation that did not need to happen and trust that erodes the next time. That is why the decision itself stays manual even when everything around it is automated. Daily Notifications Prove the Paths Terry Swanson, president and chief executive of Singlewire Software, said in written comme
Paula Vettori
4 days ago4 min read
Hospitals, Liability and AI: Athena Security Bets on Integrated Screening
Violence in healthcare facilities is on the rise. The Bureau of Labor Statistics identifies hospitals as having the highest rate of workplace violence, and the American Hospital Association estimates the annual cost of related incidents exceeds $18 billion. With California now requiring hospitals to install weapons detection systems by 2027, regulatory pressure is accelerating adoption. Athena Security is positioning itself as a beneficiary of that trend. Co-founder and CTO C
Paula Vettori
Oct 202 min read
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