How to secure intellectual property in entertainment and media

When it comes to learning how to secure intellectual property in entertainment and media, being proactive rather than reactive is the safest and most valuable approach to take.

The risks of inadequate cybersecurity include ransom demands, public embarrassment and damage to brand reputation and corporate valuation. The global media and entertainment industry remains a prime target for cybercriminals, and threats against intellectual property (IP) affect businesses of all sizes in this sector.

The cybersecurity threat: How to secure intellectual property

Cyber incidents, including ransomware and data breaches, are a top concern for businesses, surpassing natural disasters and political unrest, according to the Allianz Risk Barometer 2024. This makes securing their IP a significant challenge for entertainment companies.

• The Verizon 2024 Data Breach Investigations Report analyzed 30,458 security incidents, including a record-high 10,626 confirmed data breaches in the past year, affecting 94 countries.¹
• Sixty-eight percent of breaches involved human error
• Ransomware, or some other Extortion technique, was present in one-third of all breaches.²
• Fifteen percent of breaches involved third-party suppliers or partners.³
• Phishing, which lures individuals to click a malicious link, can compromise security in under 60 seconds.⁴

Challenges to entertainment and media IP protection

The main challenge for protecting IP in entertainment and media is that the data is high-profile and, as such, high value to online criminals. For example, in the U.S., online piracy is responsible for $30 billion in lost revenue.  Moreover, streaming platforms, online portals and apps can present a large surface for attack, so there’s a lot of ground to cover when playing defense against attackers.

Another major challenge is maintaining security with employees working remotely. If they don’t follow the proper protocols, remote employees could expose security vulnerabilities by using personal devices, connecting to public Wi-Fi or connecting to servers without using a secure VPN.

Additionally, the entertainment industry employs many third parties, where large amounts of confidential data are being shared. This means your property may be pushed even further away from the protections you may have against attackers in your home base.

One other challenge is that as the technologies you use to prevent attackers from accessing your IP improve and strengthen your security, the technologies they might use to infiltrate your defense also improve. Cybercriminals are exploring ways to use emerging technologies such as generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) to create more convincing, and therefore more effective, malware and phishing attempts.

Solutions to protect from cyberattacks

While attackers bolster their arsenal with new technologies and inventive types of attacks, you have the opportunity to strengthen your security to combat them. Here are a handful of key ways you can help protect your high-value intellectual property:

• Digital Rights Management is pivotal in protecting entertainment IP by employing technologies that can help prevent users from saving or sharing content with other individuals or nonsubscribers.
• Enhanced encryption technologies provide strong data protection by encoding data so that it is unreadable to unauthorized viewers.
• Multi-factor authentication doubles the security with a password login, followed by a code sent to the user's phone or authenticator app.
• Rapid Response Retainer is a proactive incident response planning and support service customized to a particular cyber risk profile.
• Advanced Security Operations Center (Advanced SOC) services provide security monitoring and incident response.

Why choose Verizon

To protect your business, you need to rely on a network provided by a strong security partner that is backed by years of security expertise.

• Verizon provides a complete solution and the necessary tools to learn how to secure intellectual property by protecting your network from internal and external threats.
• Verizon’s network spans more than 800,000 route miles.
• A data breach can be very costly for a business. The average cost of a data breach worldwide in 2023 was $4.45 million, according to Statista. By securing your IP with a trusted technology partner like Verizon you can assure your customers, partners and stakeholders their valuable data is safe.

Learn more about how you can help protect your intellectual property and data from attackers with network threat detection and risk mitigation solutions.

The author of this content is a paid contributor for Verizon.