Security and Operational Challenges for the Banking and Retail Industries

The banking and retail industries face significant challenges in the growth of identity theft, expanding compliance requirements, and the ubiquity of geographically-distributed systems, such as ATMs in banking and register platforms in retail. As a result, these institutions must be able to rapidly link video with transaction details in order to diminish fraud, address claims, comply with banking regulations, and deliver outstanding customer service.

The Nextiva SR Data Interface enables banking and retail institutions and other transaction-intensive organizations to mine business and security system data and link it with related event video images for use in security investigations and other operational applications. This network hardware device with embedded software is designed specifically for Verint NetDVR, NetDVR II, MicroDVR, and MicroDVR IInetwork video recorders.

Nextiva SR Data Interface Feature Set

The SR Data Interface supports simultaneously Ethernet and serial transaction data inputs to address the multi-protocol environments found in many banking and retail businesses. It also provides real-time data capture to support day-to-day surveillance. Data sent via the SR Data Interface can be retained for an extended amount of time to enable useful queries for ongoing investigations and help identify emerging incident patterns.

The SR Data Interface can mine and link data with video from transactions and events throughout:

• Banking operations, including teller, ATM, facilities management, and alarm panel/access control applications
• Retail operations, including Point of Sale/PoS, register, facilities management and intrusion systems

The SR device is a passive interface and does not contain an IP address. It can be accessed only via Verint’s Intelligent DVRs with the password-protected remote client.

SR Data Interface Operation

The SR Data Interface is ideal for low bandwidth environments. It contains a simple, embedded operating system, and only software essential to functionality is stored in the device, minimizing impact on network resources.

When implemented as an Ethernet solution, the SR Data Interface sits on a LAN and processes only Ethernet packets matching specifications pre-programmed into firmware. When configured for serial data, the passive device processes transaction details through its RJ-45 ports without compromising data-stream integrity. The SR device does not contain an IP address.

There are three methods used by Verint NVRs to capture and integrate data with event video:

• Deploy the SR Data Interface on an Ethernet network to gather transaction data from a network switch or hub, and send it to the DVR for integration with event-triggered video.
• Deploy the SR Data Interface with a combination of serial data tees (one per terminal) to capture data from the communication between the terminal and the receipt printer.
• Implement Verint DVR Messaging (also known as WebATM or WebTeller) to allow network-attached devices to send formatted, real-time data packets directly to the NVR for integration and storage with related video.

Strict Data Security

Security and confidentiality are of great importance in any environment in which sensitive customer and financial information is held. The SR Data Interface is designed for strict data security:

Proprietary Communication Format – All communication between the SR Data Interface and the NVR is conducted in a proprietary data format. It travels over only the single serial connection cable between the two devices. This hardware and software configuration establishes an extremely secure data transmission environment, making it exceedingly difficult for unauthorized users to decode SR Data Interface to NVR communications.

Protected Device Access – All access to the SR Data Interface is handled through the DVR Control Panel, a password-protected GUI provided for secure remote and local access to the Verint network video recorders. All SR Data Interface software updates are handled through a Data Devices Menu, also located behind password protection in the NVR Control Panel.

No Network Identity – The SR Data Interface has no MAC, IP, or other addressing mechanism, nor does it transmit any data to the network. Simply, it has no network identity, so it is not “detectable” or accessible by anyone who does not know it is there and does not have password access to it.

User-Defined Addresses for Packet Processing – The SR Data Interface processes packets only for addresses that have been pre-programmed into it. This gives authorized administrators complete control over the origin and nature of data that the device will process.

Restricted Input and Output – The SR Data Interface’s Ethernet port is designed for input only. There is no software mechanism present to enable the Ethernet hardware to output any data. By design, SR Data Interface serial ports are incapable of data output. There are neither software nor hardware mechanisms for the serial ports on the device to output data, and the SR does not contain an IP address.

Events and Triggers

Verint network video recorders handle video of special interest by employing programmable events and related triggers.

Events define situations of interest, such as high-value transactions or motion in a restricted hallway. These events require greater focus than standard scheduled recording and are often set to record for a specific duration at a higher frame rate and image quality. Use of the SR Data Interface further augments this video with transactional information, such as receipt data from ATMs and tellers.

Triggers are so named because they actuate or trigger events. They can be mechanical, as with the dry contact switches on the back of an NVR, or software based, as is the case with transactions processed by the SR Data Interface. When a switch is chosen in the trigger drop-down menu (from the Intelligent DVR client interface), that switch becomes the trigger associated with the event.

Nextiva Custom Integration Services

The standard Nextiva SR Data Interface configuration includes a software interface for the most widely used ATM data formats. However, the SR Data Interface may be customized for unique data communications protocols. Organizations with special data protocol and security requirements may engage the Verint development team to build a custom integration for its Nextiva SR Data Interface-to-NVR deployment. Verint has provided hundreds of custom-integrated interfaces for the banking and retail markets. The Verint customization process is streamlined for minimal impact on day-to-day business and data center operations. Contact Verint for more information.