CDSA

NAB 2019: Cybersecurity Summit Keynoter Points to New Threats

LAS VEGAS — For the opening keynote of the second-annual Cybersecurity & Content Protection Summit retired Rear Adm. David Simpson, U.S. Navy (and former chief of the Federal Communication Commission’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau), posed a simple fact: if content is king, you need to protect it as such.

Advertisers are micro-targeting audiences, smart TVs are ubiquitous, real-time feedback is a reality, personalized content curation is expected, and audiences are now a direct part of the content experience. And the number of new technologies content companies need to take into account are numerous: ATSC 3.0, 5G, IoT, AI and more are arriving.

“The trajectory of what we’re going to see in the next few years is huge,” Simpson said. “Broadcast content will now be exposed to threat vectors from the surrounding ecosystem, and information sharing between industry verticals will grow in importance.”

He added that AI will bring predictive technologies to bear very quickly, bringing forth the next iteration of content advancement. First it was analog, then digital, now look to predictive tech as the next big thing for the industry, he said.

Simpson said to confront the new threats that come hand in hand with new technologies, media and entertainment companies need to have a common language from which to discuss cyber risk, understand their security gaps, have a bias when it comes to new technology, hire a diverse cyber defense team and cultivate cyber information sharing networks.

“Concern over copyrights won’t go away, and it’s coming under increasingly sophisticated attacks,” he said. “Trust is everything, and cyber adversaries understand that controlling perceptions can be the object.”

His presentation asserted that internet-connected media has become the ‘virtual public square,’ and that broadcasters are getting ready to re-assert their position as leaders in the space, and in doing so, need to be prepared for the cyber risk that comes with internet-dependent media already under assault.

“Cybersecurity increasingly has become a team sport, and this is an interconnected, inter-dependent landscape going forward,” he added.

Co-produced by the NAB Show and the Content Delivery & Security Association (CDSA), the Content Protection & Cybersecurity Summit was presented by SafeStream by SHIFT, Akamai, IBM Security, Microsoft Azure, Convergent Risks, the Digital Watermarking Alliance, the Trusted Partner Network, and produced by the Media & Entertainment Services Alliance (MESA) and the Content Delivery & Security Association (CDSA), in cooperation with the NAB Show.