Viaccess

The pay-TV market and security issues

There is a constant risk to pay-TV operators that they may have their premium content pirated, resulting in a loss of revenues and prosecution from content owners. Defending against repeated attacks from the hacker community and reacting to breaches is a costly, ongoing battle for operators.

The client needs

To overcome this risk, pay-TV operators need to deploy a robust conditional access and digital rights management (DRM) solution able to address different forms of piracy, particularly card sharing and control word redistribution.

Viaccess’ conditional access security features

Viaccess provides protection for card-based and cardless conditional access solutions and secures a full range of TV service models: live TV, catch-up, PVR, content sharing on home networks, video on demand,..These services necessitate advanced set top boxes (STB) and smart card security features.

Smart card security features:

The highest level of security is reached through a card-based system. To maximise protection against piracy and hacking, Viaccess is committed to developing a new generation of smart card every 18 to 24 months, based on state of the art chipset certified EAL5+. Viaccess’ latest generation of smart card is the proactive PC5 . Viaccess also supports financial risks with its customers though a payment scheme committing to free card swap in case of piracy.

Set top box security features:

Viaccess offers a large range of trusted STBs with state-of-the-art chipsets to protect against control word sharing and any software modification. To ensure the highest level of protection, Viaccess has developed a suite of security features such as:

• dedicated pairing between one smartcard and STB to restrict card sharing
• conditional access module lock to enable the STB to check the authorised cards
• output control to permit or forbid content transmission through analogue or digital outputs including digital living network alliance (DLNA) bridge
• fingerprinting to print the smartcard’s serial number on the screen with random position and time
• watermarking with third party technological partners to seamlessly mark the premium content with a unique identifier of the subscribers.

Viaccess multi device strategy also covers the protection of TV on PC through a secure dongle and CAMs including DVB-CI+ compliancy.
In addition to its proven expertise and reliability in security technology, Viaccess offers a unique 360° security approach that keeps operators at the forefront of anti-piracy:

• Legal protection through the prosecution of pirates
• An open communication policy on technology security status
• A continuous monitoring of security risks
• An active participation to major antipiracy associations (AEPOC, STOP, ALPA)

With more than 85 pay TV operators, Viaccess has developed a deep knowledge of its customers’ needs and a solid expertise in protecting their premium content with a ready, proven, globally recognised and integrated solution.