Published by Radio + Television Business Report here
Data security is complex, especially in an industry with varied use cases and business models. For Bitcentral COO Sam Peterson, any attempt to prescribe a single one-size-fits-all solution will do more harm than good, he shares in this thought leadership piece.
By Sam Peterson
Media companies are far from complacent on data security, but the difficulty they face is that no two companies share the same risk profile. Differences in workflows and risk vectors make it impossible to provide a single prescriptive solution that works for all companies. This is why a consultative approach is needed; media companies need data security solutions specifically optimized for their business to stay ahead of harmful actors whose aim is to find and exploit their unique vulnerabilities.
Maintaining security in remote workflows
The adoption of remote production workflows has accelerated greatly in recent years, which has led media companies to review the security risks of these workflows. To be clear, no workflow solution is without risk: it’s only a question of what type of risk and how you mitigate it. There are competing factors to consider with cloud-based workflows. There is a delicate balance to negotiate between access to the cloud’s resources and keeping those resources secure.
The cloud provides seamless access to collaborative editing, production, MAM, and distributed workflows, and the ideal solution facilitates all of these things without compromising security.
Access to third-party services is another vulnerability to take into account. The ability to
interface with third parties is one of the cloud’s strongest selling points, but as with the cloud’s other capabilities, there are no free lunches in terms of security. The best bet for media companies is a consultative approach that offers a tailored set of best practices to suit their individual cloud-based use cases.
Keeping ahead of escalating threats
A more measured conversation is taking place about how the cloud should be used to maintain security. However, the cloud is only one branch of the total risk profile of media companies in 2024. A holistic view is necessary to keep tabs on the ever-changing nature of vulnerabilities. On that basis, a consultative approach to security is not a one-and-done solution but an ongoing process of reviewing the latest threats and how they affect companies on a case-by-case basis.
Cybersecurity threats, including malware, ransomware, phishing and denial-of-service (DoS) attacks are escalating daily across all industries — and the price of failing to keep pace with them can be an existential risk. Reputational and financial harm due to ransomware or other forms of attack can be crippling even to the most well-established industry players. Short of irreparable harm, cyber threats can set companies’ growth back by years. For this reason, a regular cadence of updates, in tandem with employee training, ongoing reviews and consultation, will be the industry standard moving forward.
The only way to ensure data security in the long term is to open a dialogue that drives ongoing data security evolution to meet the needs of customers on an individual basis.
Sam Peterson rose from General Manager of the Core Business Unit to Chief Operating Officer at Bitcentral in October 2021. Based in Newport Beach, Calif., Peterson previously spent nearly 19 years at Grass Valley, where he directed sales in media/playout from January 2012 through his October 2017 departure.
…
Read the story online here