Next-generation content protection: Multi-technology security is integral to combating new threats By David Davies
Tuesday, December 9, 2025 - 09:08
Print This Story
Encompass recently delivered a complex global services project in support of DAZN's coverage of the FIFA Club World Cup 2025
The migration to IP and new approaches to production and distribution have yielded a new generation of technologies aimed at protecting valuable content - which is just as well as the range of threats continues to expand.
The impression that we have moved into a significantly more hostile cyber environment is seemingly underlined by an increasingly broad - and numerous - range of cyber attacks. Indeed, September 2025 reportedly saw a surge in cyber incidents worldwide, covering sectors as diverse as retail, automotive and financial services. In broadcast and media, too, there is a perception that the shift to IP and new approaches to production and distribution have introduced a new element of risk, so to what extent is this concern borne out by reality?
Kier Shepherd is chief solutions officer for Encompass, a global managed services company focused on supporting broadcasters, television networks, sports leagues and OTT platforms. The company's clients include DAZN, for which it recently delivered a complex global services project in support of the sports entertainment platform's coverage of the FIFA Club World Cup 2025.
I think everybody who's contributing or distributing over the public internet, not necessarily just IP, has been introduced to new security vulnerabilities, he says. Before this we were probably living in a world where there was a reliance on the air-gapping of dedicated networks or satellite distribution, so there was less concern about such issues. What's really happened as we've moved primarily to public internet distribution is that there has been a need to rethink all of those lessons that typical software businesses and companies delivering their applications online have had to deal with for a long time.
Meanwhile, Alain Durand, senior director of business development at video technology company Synamedia, confirms the growing importance of sports to the plans of illegitimate operators. Premium sports content is increasingly targeted by pirates as it remains a major driver of subscriptions. Pirate networks have effectively become the main competitors of legitimate service providers, he says, adding that for OTT services recent DRM vulnerabilities have enabled pirates to go beyond simply stealing and redistributing content. They are now using service providers' own CDNs to distribute pirate streams - AKA CDN leeching.
Two things are going on at the same time, observes Michelle Munson, CEO of Eluvio, whose Content Fabric provides a platform for content distribution and monetisation. One, of course, is that the interest in disrupting content services is at an all-time high. But on the other side, the innovation to combat them has also advanced tremendously, and continues to do so.
Active and forensic
With a complex roll-call of threats ranging from DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks - whereby there is an attempt to disrupt a server or network by overwhelming it with traffic - to ransomware, it's not surprising that there is a universal emphasis on media companies implementing multi-faceted security technologies and practices to minimise the risk of content being compromised.
To minimise the threats, broadcasters and service providers need a combination of active protection measures (Central Authentication Service [CAS] and Digital Rights Management [DRM]) and forensic tools including watermarking, CDN leeching disruption and monitoring, says Durand, adding that Synamedia's server-side content watermarking product, Content Armor, is fully integrated into live workflows and enables the disruption of pirate sessions within minutes, directly at the CDN level .
For Munson, ensuring content security is foundational to do what we do with the Eluvio Content Fabric. So the first and most important idea is that it's truly end-to-end from the source media to the eyeball. Then when you get into the details of the Fabric, as a protocol it provides encryption, both of the content controlled by the owner and also with trustless existence' in the Fabric and re-encryption; that trustlessness allows the Fabric to scale for many tenants and also allows the content to be self-protecting.
Michelle Munson, Eluvio
Thirdly, the authorisation and rights to content are built into the Fabric protocol, which means that all of the granular session level enforcement is actually part of a policy. This gives two enormous benefits: one is that it's very specific to a given viewer session, and the other is when it's updated it applies globally to all of the media in the network - without having to republish or provide any kind of redistribution. Fourthly, we have built strong DRM into our encryption pipeline, which includes all major DRM variants, and that is combined with the studio-grade requirements in premium content so that the version of DRM selected is dynamically tied to the content that's being served.
Premium sports content is increasingly targeted by pirates as it remains a major driver of subscriptions. Pirate networks have effectively become the main competitors of legitimate service providers
For Encompass' clients, Shepherd says there are three main aspects that they would tend to focus on. The first is end-to-end encryption, which is ultimately the best defence and involves ensuring usually key-based encryption with no client-ending devices. That means we can guarantee there is no interruption of the signal from when it leaves us to when it arrives, or when it leaves the production to when
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
19/08/2026
As the cost of IP nears price parity with traditional SDI, Reynolds argues that ...
19/08/2026
A private 5G bubble was chosen instead of traditional broadcast RF for the race ...
19/08/2026
(L-R) Rafael Manuel and Isabel Sicat attend the Filipi ana premiere during the 2026 Sundance Film Festival at The Ray Theatre on January 23, 2026, in Park Cit...
19/08/2026
Studio owners invited to have their say on rates cuts
The Music Producers Guild (MPG) are inviting UK-based studios to take part in an in-depth survey that ...
19/08/2026
Vintage-inspired desktop interface revealed
Harrison's latest hardware offering sees them head into the world of audio interfaces, delivering a 10-in/12...
19/08/2026
Granular effect remains locked to scale and tempo
Described as your dream granular effect , Minimal Audio's latest creation is capable of turning any s...
19/08/2026
First polyphonic SWAM instrument incoming
Audio Modeling's latest physical-modelling orchestral instrument is just around the corner, and is now availab...
19/08/2026
World Cup Games Generate 84 Billion Minutes Across FOX, Fox Sports 1 and NBCU...
19/08/2026
July brought typical peak-holiday drops in viewership, driven primarily by viewers stepping away from screens and a visible decline in reach across both traditi...
19/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
19/08/2026
Henry joins BCE as the company accelerates its commercial strategy and expands its international presence across the media, broadcast and technology markets. He...
19/08/2026
iWedia, a leading provider of software solutions for connected TV devices, today announced a major milestone in Android platform optimization with the successfu...
19/08/2026
NTP Technology announces that ST 2110-30 audio-over-IP connectivity with AES67 and RAVENNA capabilities is now available for the brand's world-class audio i...
19/08/2026
Net Insight has been selected to provide its Nimbra platform by the service provider Big Blue Marble, formerly ORS Group, as the core media transport solution f...
19/08/2026
LiveU has supported Coventry City FC and several other top-flight UK football clubs through one of their most demanding live production challenges of the year, ...
19/08/2026
Nature Seekers Documentary Shot with Blackmagic URSA Cine 12K LF
Brie Clayton August 18, 2026
0 Comments
Filming endangered turtles required camera...
19/08/2026
Neyrinck Brings D-Control Consoles Back to Life on Apple Silicon with D-Control ...
19/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
19/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
19/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
19/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
19/08/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
19/08/2026
Riedel Communications today announced that Edith Cowan University (ECU) in Perth, Australia, implemented a comprehensive communications infrastructure that brin...
19/08/2026
QuickLink, a leading provider of award-winning video production and remote guest contribution solutions, will spotlight a major leap forward in remote guest con...
19/08/2026
Integrated platform melds media asset management, playout automation and newsroom workflows
EMAM, PlayBox Neo and SNEWS have officially launched Nuvex, a conne...
19/08/2026
Screen Australia releases the Private Investment Toolkit to strengthen screen in...
19/08/2026
Do Aussies truly value local content? Unpacking Screen Currency 2026 with Deirdr...
19/08/2026
There's an early Christmas gift for Bookish fans, as UKTV confirms the re-commission of the hit U&alibi drama, created by and starring Mark Gatiss. Viewers ...
19/08/2026
Wednesday 19 August 2026
Sky gives sports fans the chance to watch multiple liv...
19/08/2026
On Saturday September 5 Katie Taylor will step into the ring for the fight of her life against Flora Pili in front of 80,000 fans in Croke Park. A legendary fig...
18/08/2026
SportStream 2026, a free three-day virtual event, will take place September 15-17. One registration provides access to all three days of live programming and on...
18/08/2026
BeckTV will introduce BeckFlow to the European market at IBC2026, demonstrated on the Providius stand (10.F53).
BeckFlow is a web-based schematic documentation...
18/08/2026
Boland Communications will introduce a SMPTE ST 2110 input option for its 4K monitors at IBC2026, along with a new 55-inch super-narrow bezel display for video ...
18/08/2026
Dolby Laboratories and the Seattle Seahawks have announced a partnership integrating Dolby OptiView into the Seahawks' live streaming coverage, making the S...
18/08/2026
For BMG Executive Producer of Sports Production, Graham Taylor, producing live s...
18/08/2026
TMRW Sports has appointed Rufus Hack as President of Golf, a newly created role in which he will lead the company's golf businesses including TGL presented ...
18/08/2026
SMT will provide race technology for FOX Sports' coverage of the Freedom 250 Grand Prix of Washington, D.C. on August 23, when the NTT INDYCAR SERIES races ...
18/08/2026
The live, YouTube-native roundtables combine fan voices, credentialed reporters,...
18/08/2026
Behind The Mic provides a roundup of recent news regarding on-air talent, includ...
18/08/2026
The industry legend sounds off on replacing the Heat's iconic Medusa score...
18/08/2026
William F. Rasmussen, the sports fan-turned broadcaster and entrepreneur whose out-of-the-box idea of a 24-hour cable sports network, ESPN, changed forever the ...
18/08/2026
DAZN Group has completed its acquisition of ViewLift, a provider of streaming and digital solutions for sports content owners. The acquisition was first announc...
18/08/2026
The American Association of Professional Baseball (AAPB) has added SI TV, Sports Illustrated's 24/7 streaming channel, as a broadcast partner for the remain...
18/08/2026
The Esports Foundation has announced that the inaugural Esports Nations Cup (ENC), originally scheduled for November 2026 in Riyadh, will be postponed to Novemb...
18/08/2026
Diversified has announced a new Global Managed Services Practice, consolidating the company's managed services capabilities into one organization. Rob Mello...
18/08/2026
Appear has completed a proof of concept with Thoroughbred Racing Productions (TRP), demonstrating multi-camera remote live production over bonded 5G cellular an...
Next-generation content protection: Multi-technology security is integral to combating new threats By David Davies 
