Blogs

The suspected abduction of Nancy Guthrie has turned into more than a heartbreaking national story. It has become a blunt warning for the home security industry. In the early hours of the investigation, authorities believed Guthrie’s disconnected, non‑subscribed Google Nest camera held no useful video. Days later, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released clear footage of a masked individual at her front door. The surprising recovery came only after a multi‑day forensic effort...

This week in the security sphere, we have a rare opportunity to talk about something unrelated to AI. Unfortunately, the circumstances are anything but fortunate. You may have already guessed that I’m referring to the kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie, a crime so brazen and so publicly visible that updates have occasionally interrupted Olympic coverage. I’m not ready to call it our generation’s Lindbergh baby, but it’s shocking how little apparent progress has been made so long...

Corporate executive protection is being rewritten in real time. When Starbucks disclosed in late January that it is now requiring CEO Brian Niccol to use company aircraft for all travel following a security review that identified “credible” risks, the decision underscored how boards are responding to a more volatile threat landscape. What might once have been dismissed as an executive perk is now increasingly framed as a duty‑of‑care decision, rooted in threat assessments, exposure...

Two topics are swirling around my brain tonight, cloud and data privacy, and they both meet at the intersection of money. Obviously, this is Data Privacy Week and depending on when you read this it might be Data Protection Day, so the theme is both timely and important. On the other side, while the Brivo/Eagle Eye/merger is still fresh in my mind, I am looking at the importance of that data protection viewed through the lens of physical security integrated with cloud services. Unified cloud...

In an industry fueled by innovation, performance metrics, and nonstop growth, it’s easy to focus on the next technology breakthrough or market shift. But sometimes the most meaningful progress happens in quieter ways - when knowledge is shared, and when that knowledge is used to help people beyond the industry itself. That’s exactly what Axis Communications and Fredrik Nilsson have been doing for years. For nearly two decades, “Intelligent Network Video: Understanding Modern...

It’s a busy day for me as I beat down doors to secure some final stories for my issue this month, and I’ve got to ask, who made things so busy after the holidays? Deadlines being as unforgiving and permanent as they are, I endeavored to jump the gun a bit and get ahead of the post-holiday rush by putting out feelers on stories early in the hopes of avoiding the usual rigmarole. So, imagine how unpleasantly surprised I was to get several cancellations and postponement emails...

Starting 2026 close to home, I’m kicking things off with yet another New York-based story that puts security front and center – this time in the area of healthcare. When more than 1,000 nurses at three Northwell hospitals on Long Island delivered strike notices on Jan. 2, a critical issue was raised that hospital leaders cannot ignore - safety. Nurses aren’t just fighting for fair contracts - they’re fighting for environments where they can care for patients without...

While the rest of the country is buried under snow, I’ve found it unseasonably warm, and I’m hot under the collar this week as I have to deal with security issues of my own. That’s right readers, due to a comedy of errors for the past two weeks I’ve found myself on the wrong side of OPSEC and as a result subject to the extreme annoyances of extra security measures. But I’m following through with the process until things get resolved because accountability is important. So,...

Ransomware isn’t slowing down. In fact, it’s accelerating. According to a new Financial Trend Analysis from the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), ransomware payments reported under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) totaled more than $2.1 billion between 2022 and 2024, with 2023 marking a record-breaking year at $1.1 billion. The report highlights the growing sophistication of ransomware actors, the industries most at risk, and the urgent...

Now that the chaos of Thanksgiving is over, we’re free to dive back into recent events in the security world, slightly more turkey than man percentage wise. I had several good topics ready to go this week when Editor Cory Harris approached me and asked if I had seen the new TSA announcement, and readers, I had not. You can read all the sordid details with us online, but the long and short of it is suddenly a lot of things make more sense. The act to implement REAL ID officially passed...