M+E Daily

Within the media and entertainment (M&E) sector, there are many audiences both internally and externally, each with their own set of demands, and there are multiple levels of security that must be considered.

Balancing risk with innovation is a major consideration for organisations and security should complement rather than stifle progress, a panel of experts said at the 6th Dec Content Protection Summit (CPS), during the session “Getting Application Security Right for M+E.”

During the session, the experts discussed a wide range of security measures that Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application providers go through for approval by investors, content owners and partners.

With continual enhancements through rapid development cycles, being able to identify potential areas of vulnerability in advance can help make life less stressful.

Providing an introduction to the panel, Chris Johnson, Convergent Risks CEO and president, said: “What’s happening in our content security world and in the creative workflows that we track is that the traditional pillars of activity and perimeters are all melting away and they’re all converging together. We could see that happening 6-7 years ago – actually the start of it for us and we actually changed the brand of our business because of that fact. We could see that this was going to come about. So today’s panel is about talking about application security and to share some of the experiences of the reviews that we’re carrying out.”

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)-based applications today are “at the forefront of  change,” according to Johnson. “No matter where you are in the supply chain, technology is going to transform your experience. It’s going to provide opportunity for efficiency, and it’s going to probably save you some money, which is great,” he said.

Convergent Risks has been “working very closely” with the Trusted Partner Network (TPN) this year in extending the platform to include cloud security,” according to Mathew Gilliat-Smith, Convergent Risks EVP.

Noting that his firm is a provider of security assessments on-site, for hybrid strategies and in the cloud, he said it’s “really interesting to hear from the vendors directly – those who are on the frontline really with applications that are doing these great things,” he said.

He went on to introduce the other panelists: Jeremy Roche, VP of IT Security at Extreme Reach, a video-first asset management solution provider; Edward Churchward, co-founder and CTO of Arch Platform, which orchestrates cloud environments for content creation facilities; and Stephen Chow, CEO of SetKeeper, which provides a solution to manage workflows throughout the production process.

One end goal should be to make production “as fun as possible so that we can go back to making movies and making … interactive experiences instead of focusing on security and” worrying ‘oh shoot, what was my password,’” Chow said. All those security procedures are “not making movies – that’s not making entertainment, and we want to get back” to that, he added.

To access the full presentation, click here.

Presented by Fortinet and produced by MESA, CDSA’s Content Protection Summit is sponsored by Convergent Risks, Richey May Technology Solutions, GeoComply, Signiant, Verimatrix, Shift Media, EIDR and EZDRM.