The internet has finally made anytime, anywhere video consumption a reality. But for service providers that means facing down a new set of security challenges to keep content and customer data out of harm's way.

Things used to be simpler. There was a time when content providers and broadcasters had one pipe to manage. That pipe lead to one set-top box for every household, which had one screen. That was a long time ago.

Now video is consumed any time and anywhere on multiple screens and delivered via the internet. This has opened up not only a whole new world of revenue-making opportunities. But it's also borne a raft of potential security headaches.

The key to success is to keep your content and viewer data safe while maintaining a smooth and faultless service.

You're under attack

Hackers have made it their business to get inside your data center to steal content or just create havoc. Here are a few common scenarios:

• A hacker sends a data center employee a phishing email loaded with malware. The employee then unwittingly opens and downloads the malware. This provides the hacker with remote access to the data center. From there they could:
  • Steal content straight from the database and distribute it.
  • Steal customer access codes to sell on the dark web.
• With internal access, a hacker turns on 'premium channels' for all users.
• A hacker steals customer identity information held in other databases to sell online to fraudsters.
• A hacker holds the data center to ransom. This doesn't even require internal access. One way to do this is via a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. It floods your servers with internet traffic so that they can't broadcast.

Lock down risk

So how can you protect your revenue streams and reputation? You need layered protection in place to provide defense in depth, wherever the attacker tries to target. Here are a few essentials:

• Restrict each employee's access only to necessary systems to do their job. And migrate from password-based log-ins to two-factor authentication. It's much harder to crack.
• Stop known cybercriminals and threats by checking against web and email reputation databases.
• Stateful firewalls will help to stop malicious traffic.
• Intrusion prevention systems can block any attempts to exploit software flaws.
• Advanced anti-malware will track malware that got in and identifying suspicious behaviour of files originating from the internet or emails. Once that behaviour has been noted, the software can wind back the clock to see what damage it has done and remediate the infection.
• DDoS prevention services will help to ward off or neuter these attacks.

A single pane of glass

Managing all of these components can be a headache for staff. Security admins will be forced to monitor multiple screens, and attacks could slip between the cracks. The answer is to find a technology vendor that can offer best-of-breed protection, and offer threat visibility from a single pane of glass. It will lower the management burden and improve your ability to block threats. It could even reduce your staff costs.

Install this, and you'll be well on your way to securing the video data center from piracy, disruption and customer data theft.

Find out more

The explosion in IP-based video delivery and smart devices has created huge commercial opportunities. But fail to protect your most important assets and it could be game over. That's why you need the right technology partner to lock out the bad guys and keep you on the fast track to success. Join Cisco at IBC 2016 to see what's possible. There's never been a better time to do something amazing...