If you ask our tech support team what calls take up the most amount of time, they will almost always answer, “CCTV system password resets.”
But this isn’t just taking up the time of our tech team, it takes up the valuable time of the electricians and their customers trying to rectify a forgotten password.
What we find is that many sparkies installing these systems don’t have laptops to connect to the systems, which adds an additional layer of complexity to the password recovery. Many won’t know that this is a requirement until they are on-site at 3pm on a Friday. (Just a heads-up: if you’re installing IP-based CCTV systems, you really should have a laptop.)
So, if you install either Hilook or Centrii CCTV systems (or any brand, for that matter), more emphasis needs to be put on recording the passwords, or, at the very least, making use of the password reset functions in the NVRs, which we know many skip over.
CCTV systems are high-security devices. Being IP-based and connected to the internet, passwords are necessary to ensure the systems remain secure. When a password has been assigned to the system, the same password is also assigned to each camera that is connected to the NVR, preventing any malicious backdoor access. This also means that if a password is forgotten on the NVR and needs to be reset, it also must be reset on every camera.
If you are installing the system for someone, we highly encourage that you work with the owner of the system to set a password they will remember.
If you must set a password for them, we highly recommend you:
- Set a password that is easy for you to remember. Use different types of codes, like their street address or name, to help come up with unique but memorable combinations.
- Tell them what the password is and note it for them.
- Record the password in a way that’s easy for them to access.
- Record the password yourself so you can tell them if they forget.
- Remind the customer that the password is their responsibility, and don’t be afraid to charge them a call-out if they forget.
Resetting Passwords
PSA supplies two CCTV systems: our own brand, PSA Centrii, and Hilook. Obviously, both are different products with different operating systems, so password management is different for each. Let’s look at them independently.
PSA Centrii
During the setup process of a PSA Centrii NightGuard CCTV system, the user is prompted to include a recovery email and provide answers to secret questions, which will both allow a user to reset their password. It is highly recommended that you make use of these functions, ideally using the customer’s email address and questions they know the answers to.
As mentioned, PSA Centrii is our own brand, which gives our tech support team a little more control over password resets. So, if a password is truly forgotten, we can reset it remotely, in-house, with little difficulty.
Hilook
Hilook is significantly more difficult. Since PSA is a distributor of Hilook, we have little control over password resetting and must depend on support from its parent company, Hikvision, to complete a password reset.
Just like the PSA Centrii, Hilook has the ability for email recovery. We HIGHLY recommend using this, along with recording passwords, as the process of resetting Hilook passwords is time-consuming.
The password reset of a Hilook system requires accessing the system’s backend with a laptop and a program called SADP, which allows the PC to view the NVR’s secure backend. From here, we need to download a unique password reset code from the system, send that to Hilook’s support, get the file back, and upload it into SADP to reset the system. This all needs to be done within the same day and can take a couple of hours to complete, depending on Hilook’s response time. For an electrician being called out, or a consumer who didn’t even know their system had a password to begin with, this can be frustrating.
In short, CCTV systems are fantastic, and security in general is a growing business that many sparkies should get involved in. However, if you are installing CCTV systems, please take setting passwords seriously and don’t skip over the reset functions. These will save both you and your customers a lot of time and money.
