In an increasingly digital workplace, it has become more important than ever to be mindful about content protection. While some pieces of content should reach a wide audience, most high-value assets require a different level of security. These assets can include a multi-million dollar film release, pre-release design specs, or confidential reports. Individuals must be mindful of the shifting landscape of threats, and recognize that traditional protections have undergone a stress test over the past few years. We will walk through some of the key learnings to help you navigate the new status-quo, and outline processes you can put in place to ensure the safety of your content.
Content Protection must be proactive
Security can be a bit of an afterthought for many organizations. And while well-intentioned individuals make up organizations, the problem is that most people are reactive to security threats, instead of proactive. This means that these organizations will eventually have to pay to recover their content (even after paying to create it), if they leave it open to risk. Especially in the media and entertainment industry, where film and television content is a direct source of revenue for a studio, digital assets need content protection that can stand up to hackers, internal sharing, leaks, and other threats before they become an issue.
Zero-trust could go further
Need a refresher on what is Zero Trust security? Zero Trust refers to a security model built to not trust anyone by default, even those within a company’s network. Traditional IT networks trust the actors within its network, while Zero Trust trusts no one inherently. It denies access to individuals, devices, and apps attempting to interact with a system’s architecture unless specifically requested and granted.
The largest challenge of Zero Trust is that it is complex to implement, maintain and evolve. Piecemeal attempts at this framework may leave gaps in an organization’s security. Legacy systems also often have a hard time adapting to Zero Trust. Currently, this framework doesn’t really go as far as they need to support a full security offensive. However, it is an important measure in the content protection infrastructure puzzle.
Content management is growing exponentially
The content management puzzle is expanding every year. And the amount of content only gets bigger as organizations continue to create every single media cut, in a globally distributed workforce, that now needs to be making simultaneous edits in offices around the world. In 2022, 94% of companies reported to be utilizing cloud services, meaning an organization’s area for potential attack has changed dramatically. As such, having single sign-on (SSO) integrated into your workflow is key as well. While it depends on where you’re holding content’s data, it is incredibly important to limit exposure to threats as much as possible.
Avoid shortcuts to ensure security
While shortcuts are incredibly appealing, the number one thing that individuals and companies can do to protect themselves and their content is to be mindful about how they approach their security and risk. There is such a rush nowadays and an associated pressure to take shortcuts. However, this means people make short-sighted decisions all just to deliver as quickly as possible. But it’s important to remember that threats are up 300% YoY, and don’t look to be flagging in the future. We’ve seen this jump because of the sheer proliferation of content, the pressure to create content faster than ever before, and piracy targeting higher-value streams. Protection can start by taking thoughtful measures daily and in the long-term to make security a top-of-mind issue for anyone dealing with content.
Select a trusted partner when it comes to secure screening
Global piracy costs represent up to 24% of lost revenue for organizations. Thus, it is critical to focus on minimizing vulnerabilities. When considering a secure screening partner – either for VIP screenings, press reviews, market research sessions, private screening rooms, media libraries and more – it’s important to find one that has been fully vetted on security. Key features to be on the lookup for include:
- DRM: Native level support for FairPlay, Widevine, and PlayReady
- Visible and Forensic watermarking: look for flexible watermarking solutions to help you individualize and ensure your unique security needs
- Geo IP Tracking: having a view of IP activity allows admins to ensure that only authenticated devices are able to access their content
- MFA and SSO for Secure login: as mentioned above, multifactor authentication and SSO are important barriers in the security puzzle that can help defend against breech
- Playback: Look for a player that does not allow concurrent streams, and notifies admins if there are attempts made
Vision Media, for example, has been entertainment’s trusted partner for 36+ years, and has been certified by the most discerning film companies and guild executives in the business as a best-in-class digital solution for delivering premium streaming content to key viewers.
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