UL officially announced a strategic collaboration with Viakoo to mitigate ongoing operational and cyber-hygiene issues commonly found in physical security systems. Together, UL and Viakoo will explore opportunities to provide services and best practices to help businesses maintain compliant physical security systems that are resilient to cyber threats throughout the service life.

Over the past 10 years, the physical security industry has gone through a rapid transformation with the introduction of IP-based systems, multiple forms of cybersecurity threats, and an increased reliance on the evidence produced from video surveillance. As a result, a security system that was shown to be configured and to function properly at installation can quickly become non-functional, leading to more frequent service calls, a lack of video evidence, and access control failures. In addition, security systems are often targeted by hackers and require an ongoing assessment of vulnerabilities for effective cyber hygiene.

UL and Viakoo are teaming up to help develop solutions to solve these critical challenges and strengthen security. UL will leverage its deep technical expertise around the performance, reliability, interoperability and cyber protection of physical security products and systems to provide certification services and promote methods for improved cyber-hygiene for IoT application systems. Viakoo also brings a wealth of knowledge to the alliance, with over 650 million hours of service assurance data on physical security systems, digital twin IoT technology, and experience in cyber hygiene of IoT systems.

“The relationship with Viakoo, a unique SaaS provider in the physical security space, coupled with UL’s security domain experience and compliance expertise, has the prospect of helping end-users manage their growing connected technology infrastructure more efficiently, while reducing the overall risk of a critical system failure,” said Neil Lakomiak, director of business development and innovation for UL.

Bud Broomhead, chief executive officer for Viakoo, said, “UL shares our vision for ensuring that physical security investments are delivering the safety and security that they were designed for. We are honored to collaborate with a global leader in safety to deliver meaningful compliance and analytic solutions to the market.”