young couple buying a new house

5 Reasons to Upgrade Your Home Security Before Selling 

/by American Alarm Blogging Team

Invest in Home Peace of Mind 

Planning to put your house on the market? Want to differentiate the property and build value for it in a practical, demonstrable way? Offer your buyers full security capabilities and extra peace of mind.young couple buying a new house

If you already have some sort of basic alarm system in place, consider upgrading it and implementing a cutting-edge, high tech and holistic surveillance/life safety solution. The safety of your property and loved ones is crucial. Anything you can do to enhance that protection will most likely appeal to future owners of your house.

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Teenage girl with mobile phone in bed

How Monitoring Your Kids’ Online Activity Mitigates Break-Ins

/by American Alarm Blogging Team

Online “casing” has become a new favorite tool of burglars throughout the country. Statistics show that nearly 75% of home invaders used a resident’s online presence in some way to target and locate their home. While adults use social media and other online platforms to engage with the world, children are far more Teenage girl with mobile phone in bedinvested in their virtual life, which makes them a vulnerable target for would-be burglars looking for easy access to a vacant home.

There are many ways you can monitor your child’s online presence to ensure that your entire family – and your home – are kept safe from intruders. First, it’s important to know exactly how potential robbers locate the information they need.

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Reopening Your Business During the Pandemic: Security Solutions for Restaurants

/by American Alarm Blogging Team

Restaurants Opening in COVID-19 Era Need New Security Solutions

As New England restaurants begin reopening to the new normal, their owners and managers are discovering new uncertainties and risks.

Happy business owner opening the door at a cafe wearing a facemask to avoid the spread of coronavirus – reopening after COVID-19 concepts

New regulations and policies for hygiene add complexity to an already difficult business. As noted in a prior blog, some patrons are impatient or unwilling to conform to the new rules. Businesses in cities like Boston and Brockton are now facing vandalism and theft as well.

Some of these challenges can be mitigated with technology solutions.

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Man enters business wearing face mask during COVID-19 pnademic

Reopening Your Business During the Pandemic

/by American Alarm Blogging Team

Reopening Your Business? Check Your Security.

Idling business owners are still awaiting the opportunity to reopen, both here in New England and across most of the country. When these businesses finally come back online, cash and inventory will be flowing again — enticing potential burglars.Businessman with mask is going to work during COVID-19 pandemic

Given all the other challenges businesses face, besides the lost time and revenue, protecting future revenue should be a priority. Now is a good time to think through the safety and security processes involved in ramping back up your business’ physical location. 

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Operating Through the Pandemic

/by American Alarm Blogging Team

Operating Through the Pandemic

We hope and trust you are safe and well, despite the COVID-19 crisis. We would also like you to know that American Alarm is an essential Massachusetts-based business, and one that remains open to serve the public. We continue to support thousands of New England residential, commercial and government clients, including those other essential businesses that must operate through the pandemic.

Although the public’s focus is on COVID-19, traditional electronic security and surveillance solutions may prove as important as ever.

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Young woman setting burglar alarm at home.

Stay Protected During COVID-19 Crisis

/by American Alarm Blogging Team

Maintain Your Alarm/Safety Services During COVID-19 Crisis

First, we wish all safety for you and yours through the COVID-19 crisis.

It’s also worth remembering that though many of us are working from home and practicing social distancing, we still need to be reasonably cautious. This means maintaining our security and environmental surveillance and monitoring systems.

Sobering Statistics

Despite our relative isolation at home, we’re still vulnerable to theft or vandalism. That’s because despite good times or bad, criminals never really rest. In fact, contrary to what we might expect, crime hasn’t universally decreased: in some areas, it’s shown an uptick.

Young woman setting burglar alarm at home.

In New York City, general crime incidents spiked by 12 percent in the first three months of 2020 (as compared to the prior year) according to a news story. Burglaries rose by 22 percent, or 533 more cases. Possibly this is a mark of desperation, but whatever the cause, it’s a fact that robberies generally do rise in such crises, as local police and FBI statistics will likely bear out.

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Remote Surveillance for Those Most at Risk

/by American Alarm Blogging Team

 

Using High Tech to Protect At-Risk Loved Ones

Given current COVID-19 related events, it’s more important than ever to have ways to watch and protect our elderly or at-risk relatives and loved ones. At the same time, these people want to live as independently as possible, and not feel as if they are a burden.

Unfortunately, it’s more difficult than ever to safely move around and visit loved ones most at risk – both here in New England and across the country. One way to compensate for the lack of in-person visitation is to deploy a secure and reliable remote medical monitoring and alerting system.

A Growing Safety Field

There is great potential in the medical monitoring industry, particularly as smart technologies rapidly evolve. A major driver is the maturation of Internet of Things (IoT)-based solutions. In fact, this tech was the subject of an expert panel held in Boston last December, as TechTarget notes.

The article describes how  companies are exploring ways to embed “IoT remote monitoring for connected medical devices with the intent to improve their products and differentiate themselves from the competition.” These systems are largely still in development, but such an event shows how medical monitoring is a promising field.

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Data Privacy Day: Button Up Your Defenses

/by American Alarm Blogging Team

We’re fast approaching International Data Privacy Day: January 28. This event, hopefully, will spur businesses and individuals to think about just how safe their data is — and hopefully, take action to address any protection shortcomings.  

Here in New England, it’s also an excellent time to assess our own data security. Regrettably, as the National Cyber Security Alliance points out, millions “are unaware of and uninformed about how their personal information is being used, collected or shared in our digital society.” 

As this blog just recently noted, the risks of cyber/web crime are going up, with hackers and other similar criminals using ever-more powerful techniques and technologies against us. According to the “Boston Business Journal,” in 2019, the Bay State alone saw 605,000 of its residents have their private data exposed by breaches. That is up by roughly a third from 2018, when 443,000 Massachusetts citizens were affected. 

Commercial and Private Data Dangers 

As individuals, we face many risks caused by hackers or by our own revelations through social media platforms and the like. If our data is vulnerable anonymous identity thieves can victimize us easily. They can break into a less-than-diligent retail chain’s server to steal our credit card number and make purchases on our dime. This is bad enough.  

However, some individuals and businesses also hold other people’s data — such as client or patient Social Security information or other identifiers. These organizations may also face legal repercussions for failing to take proactive action to protect all third-party data.  

Massachusetts law dictates any data breach of third party data must be reported to state agencies, and to “any consumers whose data is at risk.” This can damage your professional reputation and lead to loss of income, among other negative results.  

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3G Sunset Hits Security Industry

/by American Alarm Blogging Team

A major change in mobile communication networks is on the horizon and will affect millions of security systems nationwide. The sunset of 3G cellular networks has begun, and you may need to take action to ensure your home or business security system will be able to communicate with our 24-7 monitoring station in the future.

“This is part of adapting to technology evolution,” said Maria Moretti, director of corporate operations at American Alarm. “We went through it, on a smaller scale, several years ago when the 2G network was shut down. So, we understand the impact and the importance of getting ahead of the curve for our customers.”

As many as 10 million home and business security systems in the United States now use 3G communicators to transmit signals to a monitoring station. The transportation industry is also affected significantly, with millions of tractor trailer trucks and delivery vehicles using 3G communicators for their wireless telematics systems.

“Anyone using a 3G communicator today will have to update their technology to make sure their systems can still send signals,” Moretti said. “We are staffing up now to help our customers make the transition.”

The end of 3G is occurring because the national wireless carriers, including Verizon and ATT are deploying new technologies to accommodate growing demands for streaming content, and for the exponential growth of networked wireless devices, often called the Internet of Things. To make room for the new network technology, both with frequency bandwidth and equipment on their towers, the wireless carriers will shut down their existing 3G networks.

The exact timing of the 3G sunset is an evolving matter, as the change will occur tower-by-tower in specific areas of the country, not all at once. Verizon and ATT are expected to keep most of their 3G networks operating until at least 2021. However, some parts of the country, including areas here in New England, are already losing 3G coverage.

“What we saw during the 2G sunset is the timing can be unpredictable,” Moretti said. “We want to make sure our customers’ security systems can always communicate with our central station so we can react to emergencies. That’s why we are launching our 3G update program now.”

American Alarm will be reaching out to affected customers by mail with more details.

NEXT STEPS:

Self-Checkout: Most Commonly Stolen Items

/by American Alarm Blogging Team

Gaps Plague Retail Self-Checkout Security

We know that self-supporting retail technology — with its sensors, devices and big data capabilities — offers us many conveniences. However, basic self-checkout platforms don’t always work well for retailers, here in New England, and beyond.

In fact, the Springfield, Massachusetts-based chain of stores Big Y World Class Markets decided it had to remove its self- checkout aisles, according to a Worcester Telegram.com article. In large part, this move was because of the higher incidence of thefts. The article notes that shoplifting is five times more likely at a self-checkout terminal than at a typical human-manned cash register. Read more →