Video is becoming more and more important in modern businesses. As with other digital tools, however, online video can be vulnerable to hacking and other security issues. Recent research estimates that by 2022, piracy will cost businesses $52 billion a year. In addition, companies use security measures to increase piracy, hacking and other digital attacks each year. Total costs of cybercrime could reach $ 6 trillion in one year too. This is why using a secure video platform is so important to professionals.
In this post, we will focus on secure video hosting and delivery. Specifically, we will examine seven important secure video hosting methods, tools, and features.
7 secure video hosting methods you should know
If your business relies on video for training, marketing, or monetisation, protecting that content is essential. From encryption to geographic restrictions, there are several ways to ensure your videos remain secure—keeping both your intellectual property and your audience's data safe. The techniques below can be used individually or layered together for maximum protection.
1. AES Encryption
AES encryption is the first line of defense for many broadcasters against security threats. AES stands for 'Advanced Encryption Standard.' Encryption is the process of scrambling information so that only authorized users can see it. A firm defined AES as "a symmetric block cipher chosen by the US government to protect classified information [and] implemented in software and hardware around the world to encrypt sensitive data.
For video streaming, each stream provides AES encryption using a special key. If the viewer does not have this special key, they will not be able to view the video. In other words, AES makes it difficult for hackers to access your video content. Eventually, even hackers who intercept secure AES-encrypted video streams will not be able to view the video.
This process is transparent and easy for users to implement. There is no learning curve, and on most online video platforms, enabling AES encryption is as easy as checking the box.
AES encryption adds a strong layer of security to any professional video. However, this method can be used in combination with several other safe transmission measures.
2. HTTPS Delivery
HTTPS protects you from so-called man-in-the-middle attacks. These attacks are relatively common in video streaming, especially when people use open networks in schools, cafes, and libraries.
Hackers can exploit vulnerabilities in these public networks to transmit data to a browser.
Through the use of digital certificates and encryption keys, HTTPS delivery encrypts users' connections to the Web and prevents this type of attack.
HTTPS wraps all communication between the server that sends your videos and the browser in a layer of secure encryption. This provides additional protection for your content.
3. SSL / TLS Encrypted Paywall
It is very important to keep things safe when it comes to money. Whenever customers enter payment information on your site, you must ensure the security of their data. Otherwise, you could be liable for the damages and face serious problems.
The best way to do this is to use SSL / TLS. In fact, it is the same type of encryption banks use to protect your financial information.
The secure payment wall ensures that you always protect your customers' data. Therefore, it is necessary to use and secure paywall Protected with SSL / TLS if you choose to monetize your video content.
Ideally, any paywall should allow you to accept payments across multiple currencies and accept cards, PayPal, etc.
4. Password Protected Video
Password protection is a simple but effective method of secure transmission. While it may sound simple, password protection is a great way to protect your content from unrated viewers.
Password-protected video works exactly as you envisioned. First, set a password for the videos you choose. Viewers must then enter the correct password to watch. If they don't know the password, they can't access the video.
Password protection is a simple and effective security method that is ideal for video previews, internal company use, customer reviews, etc.
It is also important to note that this is not everyone's line of defense. Depending on the scope of your brand, passwords can leak from online forums. For this reason, many broadcasters occasionally change passwords to mask access denials.
5. Geographical Restrictions
If your viewers are in specific regions or countries, geographic or intellectual property restrictions may be the choice for you.
This tool aims to combat piracy by blocking access to your videos in certain geographic areas. Most of the piracy comes from certain areas. In fact, the United States Attorney's Office lists the 36 countries with the highest piracy rate. Geographic limitations are facilitated by the "blacklists" of these countries.
Many companies want to target their videos only to viewers in one or two countries. In this case, geo-restrictions make it easy to "add to the allowed list" these countries and automatically blacklist all others.
The whitelist works based on the IP addresses that correspond to the geographic location. Like most security measures, it is not 100% bulletproof, but it can provide a valuable additional security layer.
6. Restrictions Of The Transferor
Geo-restrictions work fine, but as earlier highlighted, the best way to ensure secure video streaming is through a layer of security.
Another method you can implement to protect your content is to restrict your landing pages.
Restrictions of the referrer function by allowing certain domains where it is allowed to play your video content. These domains generally include your site and any affiliate sites you have.
When this feature is enabled, this feature is periodically verified with the server through a system of digital security tokens.
When it is detected that your video is embedded in an unauthorized site, the playback will be blocked immediately. Anyone who tries to embed your video on another site will not be able to stream it.
7. Secure Video and CDN Data Centers
These usually provide content delivery-level security across state-of-the-art content delivery networks and data centers.
When you upload a video to an online video platform, these files are stored in a data center that is often operated by the content delivery network (CDN).
CDN is a server network that uses comprehensive load balancing software to deliver video and other media around the world as quickly as possible. Using a CDN ensures your content loads quickly with minimal lag and caching.
Using an online video platform integrated with CDN helps you protect yourself from various types of attacks. These include "DDoS" attacks that flood websites and attempt to block them. Using the CDN makes this type of cybersecurity attack largely ineffective.
Plus, CDNs help protect you from hardware failure. They offer built-in redundancy, making your content safe and fast to load.
More Tips For Secure Streaming
These seven security measures are quite effective. We would like to reiterate that using more defensive lines is the right way to go.
A general tip for secure transmission is to monitor your systems regularly. Be on the lookout for suspicious activity.
As briefly mentioned, a quick Google search for "your brand + video title + password" should trigger any forum or website that has revealed the credentials of your password-protected content.
In all, secure transmission is important but equally important is the confidential information that professional broadcasts provide. If you monetize your content, your video CMS is linked to your financial information.
When you use interactive video streaming content for sales and marketing, you are likely to collect email addresses and contact information. You owe it to your stakeholders to keep your information secure.
If possible, enable multi-factor authentication on all accounts you use for professional broadcasts. This applies to your online video platform, your software encoder, the email address associated with your account, and other tools that you use.