Pranav Nagpal, Vice President, Business Development, OIS-AT
SP’s ShowNews (SP’s): Can you offer your comments on the future of aviation sector with respect to offset policy procurement?
Pranav Nagpal (Nagpal): In India, investment requirement for airport development is projected at more than 30,000 crore with approximately 70 per cent of the investment expected from the private sector. Also, the Indian Government has liberalised foreign direct investment (FDI) policy in the aviation sector permitting foreign airlines to buy 49 per cent stake in Indian carriers to give a boost to civil aviation. With measures like Bengaluru Special Economic Zone and formulation of the offset policy, Indian aerospace and the aviation sector is likely to grow rapidly. With defence offsets opening up investment in civil aviation and internal security sectors as well, this provides an unprecedented incentive to make Indian airport infrastructure on par with the best in the world.
SP’s: What security risks are envisaged for high value assets like airports?
Nagpal: Airport operations, both passenger and cargo, require the highest level of security beyond perimeter walls. Following 9/11, many international airports have initiated measures to improve security and safety systems, whilst being under pressure from competition to improve the passenger experience as well. Since this is a concentrated area for threatening elements to potentially gain entry or exit from an area, there is a need for increased policing, monitoring, tracking and identifying of such persons. Given the sheer numbers and value of people and assets transitioning at mid-large airports itself warrants an increased level of security at these points.
SP’s: What are the emerging trends in technologies for protection of high value assets?
Nagpal: In our experience whilst dealing with airport authorities, owners and security agencies, the biggest flashpoint emerges in the contrary objectives of increased security and passenger comfort. Whilst security levels sometimes justifiably warrant extreme levels of intrusive checks and delays, both inside and outside an airport, the ground realities of providing passenger comfort at an international level is also seen as necessary to maintain a competitive edge internationally. Maintaining a fine balance has become a critical factor in the success of a security system these days.
Today’s technology combines non-intrusive but very effective tracking, classification, identification, detection and alarm flows. Security systems today are integrated, smart and powerful, yet discreet. They effectively manage the huge number of activities that could potentially cause alarms, to only select outlier behaviour that warrants a response by security personnel. A modern security system would depend on integrated management system capable of integrating a diverse range of required technologies like infrared detectors, lasers, radars, buried cable vibration sensors, thermal detectors, video cameras, analytics, access control, baggage scanners, cargo scanners, etc.
SP’s: Could you please elaborate on the new sorts of sensors available in the market or through your firm for airport security?
Nagpal: There are a number of technologies that have been developed to address security concerns worldwide, and one of my responsibilities is to identify technologies globally that could be suitable for the Indian environment, with a view to ultimately providing a more robust technology to a security agency or an airport in India. For example, through our tie-ups we are bringing to the market advanced vibration detectors and infrared barriers that run autonomously with no need for power supply. This is critical in security installations where power supply becomes a concern yet there is a requirement for a state-of-the-art security system. Both technologies filter out normal behaviour or environmental false alarms and give a very precise alarm when there is a real intrusion. We also have lasers that are used in European airports that can detect any movement over land as well as water, this is particularly useful for airports that face threats from waterways or the sea close by. We are for the first time bringing to India a wide area surveillance radar that is used extensively in airports worldwide. This radar allows normal movement in or around an airport, offers superior classification, track and trace capabilities, and generates a visual confirmation of a detected intrusion/perimeter breach. This radar controls a PTZ camera to give constant visual information to the security staff with no interaction necessary. We are also deploying discreet and hidden vibration detectors that are buried underground that form safe zones in or around airports. Unlike traditional microwave technology, these cables work on laser beams being pulsed through standard fibre-optical cables and are thus much more robust and cheap. Every security installation invariably needs a level of CCTV and analytics, but we are promoting a level of intelligence in analytics that is on par with Hollywood science fiction. This system starts learning about its environment when you switch it on and thereafter only alarms on behaviours that it hasn’t seen before. Its algorithms are made almost akin to how a human starts learning about the world around it.
SP’s: What is the future of IT systems with respect to security for high value assets?
Nagpal: For perimeter security and runway/taxiway surveillance, technologies can be selected based on threat perception, terrain and local weather conditions. Public and passenger access ways, passenger terminal access areas, staff/supplier access ways and luggage and air freight flow are equally important since they offer an opportunity to undesirable elements to gain entry and create problems. All these technologies would be integrated using an IT network backbone and Security Management System (software) connecting various technologies and devices to servers. The command and control centre would comprise of displays controlled by user-friendly Graphical User Interface. The integrated Security Management System should offer ease of use, clear and concise graphics, clear menu boxes and dynamic control panels. The main thrust of modern security software is the intelligent way in which they generate, classify and present an alarm to a user. Most good systems would go beyond just showing an alarm with a video verification, and also present the user with a workflow on what steps need to be taken for each type of alarm. These could include mitigating actions, physical verification, escalation and communication. The best systems integrate all sorts of data integration including communications, mapping and dealing with national or local threat levels to modify security procedures accordingly.
SP’s: What are the information security and continuity measures in case the IT infrastructure becomes dysfunctional due to poor third party software or cyber attacks?
Nagpal: These systems are envisaged to protect high value vital installations hence all information security aspects need to be addressed. We have to take care of three basic Information Security Attributes, i.e. Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability. Confidentiality of information is to be ensured by state-of-theart encryption techniques. Integrity means that data cannot be modified undetectably and always remains authentic. Some measures to ensure data integrity are passwords, virus protection, firewall, physical access restrictions, etc. High availability systems aim to remain available at all times, having in-built measures to ensure service continuity despite power outages, hardware failure and system upgrades. This would also involve preventing denial of service attacks. A security system for a high value asset would require features like driver separation to enable stability. The separation of drivers allows for loading of all the drivers running to be spread across the system and having the ability to migrate individual drivers to other computers in the event of a PC or network failure. Continued operation would call for automatic configuration redundancy and power to ensure continued connectivity to systems at all times.
Hence to sum up, an Integrated Security Management System will look to achieve the following objectives:
