Today's broadcast media production companies are facing an environment of enhanced formats, evolving platforms, faster processor speeds,andOTT delivery that allows for video to be watched on pretty much any device. These exponential technology advances have had a tremendous impact on the media industry. Video can be shot, produced, edited, and delivered by creative artists linked through powerful networks distributed across multiple specialist studio locations. The business opportunities are boundless, but all of this is happening in a connected world that presents mounting security challenges. This week at the NAB Show media companies will learn how to thrive securely in this new media-optimized IP environment.

Today, financially motivated hackers are increasingly targeting the creative industry. The connected and disaggregated world of video production represents a growing attack surface that can be exploited by bad actors -pun intended! We have all heard about the Sony hack, finding the source of the breach was a nightmare.  There is still speculation on where the theft originated. And, what about the TV5Monde broadcast and social media hijacking? Who saw that coming?  A recent nScreenMedia report found that 28% of media organizations admit to having experienced a cyber attack of some type or another. What can creative artists do to protect their work? They want to create award-winning films, not worry about who might be trying to steal their content, or even worse, hold it hostage for a big ransom payment. Video production and distribution companies need a cloud-scale solution to protect their creative assets and distributed infrastructure.

Media production networks, corporate IT, media storage locations, and customer data must be access controlled and defended against intrusion. To mitigate threats, you need to block access to potentially malicious webpages or email by the creative team or corporate staff, without inhibiting the creative process or other activities to run the business. You need to defend the network perimeter and continuously monitor the entire IT environment in case unknown threats get in, so you can quickly detect, contain, and remediate breaches. Only Cisco delivers the comprehensive security solution to safeguard your media assets and critical business data from creation to consumption.

Don't just take our word for it; NBC Olympics selected Cisco for its production of the 2016 Olympic games in Rio. NBC will deploy Cisco Media Blueprint with premium network protection to ensure their on-line staff, content and live feeds from Rio stay safe from cyber attacks. Included are Cisco ASA Firewall with Virtual Private Network services (VPN), Firepower Next-Generation Intrusion Prevention (NGIPS) and Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) with Stealthwatch network flow analysis.

Cisco's Threat-Centric Security Solutions for the Media Industry are designed to protect your video content and broadcast infrastructure so you can focus on developing compelling content that can be delivered securely to your viewing audience. With Cisco, you are protected by the#1 in data center security and the#1 in video security. Our multilayered solutions work together to ensure that your content, services and business are protected from advanced cyber threats -across the attack continuum -before, during and afteran attack. BEFORE the attack, our solution strengthens the network perimeter, enforces secure access, and safeguards media content across networks, systems, users, and data. DURING the attack, it provides real-time detection and mitigation from known threats.  And AFTER the attack, it helps you to quickly discover malware that gets in and resolves these unknown attacks to prevent your business from being compromised.

Once your content is ready for primetime, Cisco's VideoGuard Everywhere provides a comprehensive and proven multi-DRM (digital rights management) based security solution to protect video delivery to multiple screens. To mitigate illegal online content streaming, VideoGuard Everywhere Streaming Piracy Prevention helps to locate, identify, verify, and eliminate such activity. And our global team of Operational Security experts constantly tracks pirates to stop them from impacting our customers' business.

Cisco has your back. With our holistic approach to data center security and a full range of secure broadcasting solutions we are the trusted security partner for the broadcast media production industry. Read George Tupy's blog to learn more about Cisco's cloud-scale media experience that will be showcased at the 2016 NAB Show in Las Vegas.