Creating Proactive Security

Peter Miller, the CSO of Orange County in Florida, talked to Security magazine this afternoon at ISC West about how he is teaming with Next Level to utilize security systems to proactively stop crime before it happens, which turned out to be a common theme today at the expo. 

Miller is in charge of roughly 400 buildings and 3,000 cameras, and his security measures have been put to the test in the past few years as multiple high-profile incidents have taken place in his vicinity, for example, the Casey Anthony trial and the latest debate — Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law and the shooting of Treyvon Martin.

Miller is in control of both IT and physical security, which, in his opinion, is a point in his favor. He pointed out that Anonymous, the online hacking community, went after Orange County organizations, making threats both against cyber and physical infrastructure. For Miller, his dual post cuts out not only a middleman, but a middle department, so his one security team can work together under a single management system to defend critical infrastructure against attacks. 

Through their association with Next Level, Orange County, along with several other associations at ISC West, is working to expand the uses of existing security systems throughout the area, challenging each other to reach a higher level of security through analytics and law enforcement partnerships. 

"We're in a lot of different businesses," says Miller. "We're tracking stray dogs and dead people. There's a lot more that we can look out for other than terrorism." 

For example, Miller used his surveillance systems to negate the need for a task force studying traffic patterns inside hospitals. He also noted that through partnerships with local law enforcement, organizations such as the parks and recreation department in Orange County can tie sex offender and criminal databases into their surveillance systems to proactively notify a sheriff's office if a noted threat were to enter one of the fitness clubs or parks.

The organization can customize the system to report exactly what they want, Miller said, but the options are available. He also added that parents can help locate their children through facial recognition software at these various locations, so they can be informed of when and where their child was last seen. 

Miller added that he wasn't looking for an out-of-box solution, but instead ways to improve upon and further utilize existing infrastructure, solving business problems through finding additional value in a preexisting or slightly modified security system.