Tech-Ops taps AMYNA Systems for ‘fundamental shift’ in communication

NEW YORK—Technical Operations has a new strategic partnership with AMYNA Systems to efficiently secure its networked audio-visual devices. 

The company turned to AMYNA Systems, which develops operational technology network security solutions, to provide what he terms a “fundamental shift” in how devices communicate on its network. 

“In our conference room, we have a test layout for (AMYNA Systems),” said Achille Raspantini, CEO and founder of Tech-Ops. “We've been able to put everything in place in a full-blown conference room that we set up for clients, and it's bulletproof. It doesn't seem like it can fail.” 

AMYNA Systems tested its Converged Network Security Platform (CNSP) in Tech-Ops’ complex AV environments, with the goal of creating a completely secure network. The results: CNSP secured networked AV devices efficiently, including complete device profiling in under two hours and packet processing speeds averaging 1.581 microseconds.  

Min Kyriannis, CEO of AMYNA Systems, noted that the partnership between the two companies happened very naturally and organically, thanks to the “overlapping in many of these markets that we're in,” including AV.  

“A lot of it is physical security, but as we start growing and as things start expanding, you’re noticing there's a cross-pollination of different industries,” she said. “You have security integrators who used to concentrate on physical security and asset control now weaving into the AV space, as well.”  

One of the challenges with a lot of AV systems is the inability to access network traffic patterns with these types of devices, Kyriannis noted, which is not the case with the addition of the CNSP.  

“The caveat here is when you’re streaming video, it's on the network,” she said. "Typically, what happens is network administrators do not have access to the network, and some of these networks are siloed in such a way, using different systems and different designs, that don't have full visibility into the network. With the technology, now you can actually see traffic. They have 100% access into the network, they have 100% visibility into the network, and they have 100% control of the network.”  

Another aspect that Kyriannis calls “extremely critical” is that if the system does get compromised, the entire network does not have to be taken down.  

“We just have to isolate the nefarious packet on the side, give the team an ability to investigate it, and Achille and his team can still operate the entire operations 100% without failure to the network,” she noted.  

Raspantini noted how the introduction of AMYNA’s platform has completely changed his company’s approach to securing AV devices on the network and protecting them from cyber threats.  

“Let's take a simple Crestron (video conferencing) system that is controlling basically the whole AV side of things for a client,” he said. “There have been times where a lot of the units are defunct, and we're not sure if it's because of somebody trying to tap into the video system or if it’s an end user problem. But when we put this device in between, it seems to be pretty good. We have a little bit more of a security blanket that we know that no one is tapping into it.”