29 TECHFEED Content Security
A DISSENTING VOICE? If the long-term outlook appears bleak, some observers do believe there is cause for optimism. A technical representative of a European broadcaster who wished to remain anonymous observes: “Since online access to video content has become much easier and affordable – think Amazon Prime, Netflix and Apple – and content piracy protection on online platforms, such as YouTube and Facebook, has become much tougher, the effort of finding an illegal copy is often much higher than the immediate costs to legally obtain a copy. Additionally, user side copy protection of satellite, terrestrial and cable feeds has become more effective through better encryption (NAGRA, etc), digital interfaces (HDMI 2.0 with HDCP instead of analogue signals) and multi-DRM strategies.” The history of piracy tells us that, even if one aspect of the problem is reduced or even beaten, a new facet swiftly emerges. The urge of some people to steal or share content they do not own seems unlikely to disappear any time soonw, meaning content creators will always welcome new initiatives that can help them safeguard their assets.
MIX AND MATCH Combatting piracy requires a mix of solutions for providers and content creators, such as bot protection
BEATING THE BOTS In terms of specific current cyber threats, Munford alludes to DDoS attacks, ransomware attacks, phishing attacks on IT systems – and bots: “In October last year, Akamai identified and prevented more than 196 million bot attacks aimed at the professional video industry in one day!” Moreover, the reasons behind these attacks can vary dramatically – ranging from “organised gangs stealing viewer information for a profit, through to nation state attacks for more political reasons”. As a leading content delivery network and cloud service provider, it is clear that Akamai pursues a truly holistic approach – Munford describes it as a “zero trust philosophy” – to planning and executing content protection. “The goal of the approach is to prevent any service disruption, loss of data and, of course, content,” he explains. “To illustrate this approach, we advise customers to look at infrastructure security solutions like firewalls, DDoS protection, bot protection and origin-shielding solutions to safeguard against different types of infrastructure security issues. “We also suggest customers look at viewer data protection technologies like
customer identity management, privacy controls and fraud protection to safeguard sensitive and personally identifiable information (PII) data. “Last but not least they would need content protection solutions, such as tokenisation, media encryption, geo or IP- based restrictions to safeguard themselves against content piracy and link sharing, and to ensure rights obligations are met.” All this should enable users “to discover pirates or thieves, prevent their activity and enforce the right action”, says Munford.
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