OCTOPUS: Converged Security At Its Best

As a former Israel Defense Forces combat soldier and officer in the paratroopers, it’s not surprising when Tal Bar Or, the CEO of OCTOPUS, spells the mission that drives him: The sense of creating a secured world. “But it’s not an easy task to achieve,” he says. Being a corporate security and risk consultant, Bar Or understands what CIOs and security administrators are dealing with today. “With globalization, they are struggling to gain a comprehensive overview of security, risk analysis, and Common Operational Picture (COP) of all their assets and staff around the world,” adds Bar Or. The disparate nature of security solutions add to the complexity, hindering the ability to manage and correlate information for effective decision making. CIOs need smarter tools that can provide a bird’s eye view of physical security, safety, cyber security, and operational requirements—from one system, in real time and in a proactive manner. OCTOPUS was established to fill this gap, and the results are already visible. With a new breed of smart, agile, and easy to deploy Command and Control software system, OCTOPUS has been recognized as the most innovative command and control system by Frost and Sullivan last year.

Born under the supervision of Bar Or and Baruch Tagori—a cyber technology expert and global cyber risk consultant— OCTOPUS offers the industry’s only completely cloud-enabled, converged physical security and cyber event management platform with all the necessary tools. “The advanced Physical Security Information Management (PSIM) Command and Control Center takes the guesswork out of our client’s security management by unifying disparate security devices and information systems into one converged platform,” says Bar Or.

Covering Physical and Cyber Security

OCTOPUS’ PSIM system and mobile application integrates technology, procedures, and personnel into one command and control center. Today, organizations are looking to fuse their Physical Security Operations Center (PSOC) with their Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) SOC— into one Global Security Operations Center (GSOC) dealing with all events. For GSOC to function effectively, it is necessary to share information between the two departments in real time, and allow more information security and insider threat risk mitigation. OCTOPUS is allowing the much required correlation and integration between physical security and cyber security systems. The solution can interface with a client’s entire security and data systems including alarms, fraud prevention, cyber attack alerts, safety sensors, and closed circuit cameras, as well as open source intelligence and social media—enhancing situational awareness, improving response time, thus increasing efficiency of the systems.

The OCTOPUS PSIM takes the guesswork out of our client’s security management by unifying disparate security devices and information systems into one converged platform

Delving further into the uniqueness of OCTOPUS, Bar Or highlights that it is the first PSIM command and control system to be developed completely as a cloud-enabled system, on Microsoft Azure, allowing clients to generate new revenue sources using OCTOPUS’ platform as a managed service. The cloud based system has been certified by the government for offering superior information security. In addition, Microsoft has chosen OCTOPUS as its solutions partner for the public sector, and safe city and smart city projects running on the Azure cloud—on a global basis.

What makes OCTOPUS more desirable is its mobility feature that gives organizations access to events, incidents, mass notifications, video, dispatching capabilities, and security management, in real time and from anywhere. “Our mobile application platform uses encrypted push notification technology and allows organizations to update thousands of people on incidents with the push of a button,” states Bar Or. The robust platform provides a rich communication and response podium between the command center and the mobile forces, field operations, and company employees. In times of distress, the mobile application acquaints organizations with a full synopsis of the incident, tracking, and navigation instructions. It supports both Android and iOS operating systems and can be installed on a vehicle as a terminal and tracking device. This app is an integral part of the OCTOPUS command center as it correlates data between the system and the mobile users by ‘speaking’ with more than 35 modules developed to deal with physical security management, integrated command and control, asset protection, Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD), SIEM, risk management, and safety management.

OCTOPUS’ mobile platform has achieved great recognition in the government security sector. Having served in the governmental security agency, Bar Or expresses that OCTOPUS has always regarded the government sector as an important partner. The company’s commitment is reflected in its effort to meet ISO standards for information security. OCTOPUS has implemented ISO 9001 for standards of work and quality assurance, and expanded it to ISO 90003 for software development standards. Taking a step further, OCTOPUS went on to comply with ISO 27001 for information security standards and finally with ISO/IEC 20000 for IT service standards. “Our platform has been rigorously examined for information security by the Israeli government and is authorized for use in all government offices, Ministry of Defence, and Law enforcement agencies worldwide,” expresses Bar Or. OCTOPUS is working on a safe city project in Lagos Nigeria, a large safe community project in Europe, and in securing one of the largest ports in Latin America.

In addition to making an impact in the government sector, OCTOPUS is gaining traction in the banking and infrastructure domain with OCTOPUS Encompass—developed especially for smart infrastructure management. This cloud-enabled platform connects all of an organization’s security, building management systems, and critical infrastructure, and then analyzes and correlates the system’s data to assist with efficient emergency and routine management.It logs and retains all the information security and physical security events, allowing interrogation and deployment of regulatory procedures to ensure compliance. OCTOPUS Encompass can handle thousands of sensors and users and is successfully deployed with three of the biggest banks in Israel.

One-Stop Security Solution

Offering a security information management platform requires OCTOPUS to align with its client’s organizational processes, business culture, protocols, and governance. OCTOPUS provides security consulting to its clients as either a service separate from its platform, or as a combined framework for the installation of OCTOPUS system. The company has recently completed a business case analysis for the establishment of a new GSOC for one of the biggest banks in Canada. In addition, they have carried out a complete assessment of the existing security procedures and technologies in the main airport of an East European country.

"Our mobile application platform uses encrypted push notification technology and allows organizations to update thousands of people on incidents with the push of a button"

Emphasizing OCTOPUS system to be the go-to-solution for clients, Bar Or adds that it is much more than just a PSIM command and control, and crisis management platform. With patent pending technology for radar and drone integration algorithms and modules that assist companies in mitigating risk, managing safety, improving performance, and complying with governance and regulations, OCTOPUS is a proactive system. The performance and monitoring module of OCTOPUS is a BI managerial system that facilitates managing KPIs and assessing organizational risk in a proactive manner. The company’s safety routines module drives safety compliance and increases transparency and visibility into the organization’s safety state. OCTOPUS’ performance and monitoring module is used by the Coca-Cola Group for 16 different sites, and the safety routines module is used by ICL—a multi-billion dollar chemicals company—in 48 different sites and in 5 different languages. Further, a smart and intuitive module—Visitor’s management system—works with the mobile app for verifying and inviting visitors, and digitally signing them on the company’s documents. It can be run on the cloud and support many sites from the same installation.

“We stand unique and manage to get ahead of our competitors by offering customers more value with better technology, at a lower cost,” states Bar Or. OCTOPUS credits its success to its culture of involving and listening to its customers, thus growing and learning from their knowledge and experience—adopting the ‘wisdom of the masses.’ Having served as an officer in the army, and then in the governmental security agency, Bar Or believes in the higher purpose of helping people. As he puts, “This is the vision I brought to OCTOPUS—to provide security for people, assets, and organizations. The solution we provide to our clients fulfils this vision and is our ‘unit’s’ pride.”