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ETIA 2015 Special Event: Not so safe -- Entertainment over the web

June 26, 2015

Until recently, security for the entertainment industry was almost entirely about piracy. However, given recent events, cyber security in general has also become a very important topic. The evening event featured a panel of speakers representing a wide variety of perspectives, from the MPAA, MaxPlay, Prime Focus, Independent Security Evaluators, Amazon, Aspera, and OnLive. First, the panel made it clear that cybersecurity has become a business issue -- it is no longer strictly the province of the IT department. Systems that rely on people to behave perfectly are doomed to failure, as there are always times that employees do things they shouldn't. 

Cybersecurity begins with creating a model of the likely threats to your organization. Depending on how large it is, that can include disgruntled former employees, competitors, pirates, malicious hackers, or even governments. ISE expert Ted Herrington showed us how insecure wireless routers are -- subject to both local and remote attacks. MaxPlay's Artes dissected many of the recent infamous corporate hacks and showed how simple most of them were -- due to inadequate security precautions taken by the victimized companies. He gave a compelling demonstration of how easy it is to see the name of every WiFi network most of the mobile phones in use at the conference had ever been connected to. This is a well-known issue, but his use of the data to backtrack people's likely places of work and residence was definitely spooky to the audience members.

Wendy Frank of the MPAA gave some thoughts to attendees on how best secure their enterprises, starting with following the MPAA's new best practices guidelines that are now available on its website. The primary focus of the guidelines are certainly to help protect digitally-stored films from theft, but of course also assist in keeping other corporate assets safe.

Tag(s): ETIA

David Cardinal

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