RE: Securing a Barracuda DVR video surveillance system?

[Murad Talukdar <talukdar_m () subway com>]

Jeff, some of the stores in our system have done something similar.
One or two of them have used VPN's to be that bit more secure when
connecting back into the store.

Does the system have its own machine onsite which monitors and collates? Or
is the system actually remote and only camera data is sent to the remote
machine?

Murad
-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Davis [mailto:jeff () dynamictelecard com] 
Sent: Tuesday, July 26, 2005 1:38 AM
To: security-basics () securityfocus com
Subject: Securing a Barracuda DVR video surveillance system?

I have a company that wants to run a 'Barracuda DVR video
surveillance system' and use the remote viewing capabilities.

I was curious is anyone on the list has
experience in trying to secure this.

I just got a copy of the installation instructions,
and there is no mention of how to secure this.

In fact its basically run the install, open a
bunch of ports on your router.

For the client it tells it only works in IE,
and then to change your security settings so
that IE prompts you to allow downloading and
initialization of unsigned ActiveX controls.

I contacted the company and asked some
questions about the software.
I got what I expected.

"The webserver is proprietary..."
"The database is proprietary..."
..etc...

I did get told that they prefer that you
*not* run any anti-virus software on the
box, because some of them interfere
with the surveillance software and also
degrade performance.

If anyone has more info on this,
I would greatly appreciate you sharing.

Thanks,

Jeff