From April 5 to 7, we look forward to seeing you in Lille for the International Cybersecurity Forum (FIC)! Come and meet b<>com’s experts at the Brittany pavilion, stand F23, and find out about b<>com *Tag*, our digital video watermarking solution in two new use cases. But before that, read our short interview with cybersecurity expert Gaëtan Le Guelvouit, who heads up the Trust & Security lab, for insight into the major trends shaping the cyber sector and the new features of our solution.
Gaëtan, what are the cybersecurity trends and what challenges need to be tackled?
The main cybersecurity trend in evidence over recent years has been the harnessing of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to automatically detect threats, including unknown threats, by observing abnormal behavior.
The limits of this approach are beginning to become apparent, and AI is now tending to be seen more as an aid to security operators, rather than as a completely autonomous entity. Providing operators with relevant decision support tools, with a high level of reliability and explainability, is already a huge help.
Sovereignty is also a very topical subject: all manufacturers want to have sovereign solutions, but this is almost impossible in practice. So we have to ask ourselves: how can we manage our suppliers, our cloud (which may be abroad), our open-source libraries, etc.? We need an overview of our dependencies in terms of infrastructure or software in order to ensure sovereignty and control over IT supply chains.
Can you tell us what makes the digital watermarking solution b<>com *Tag* so innovative?
b<>com *Tag* responds to a request from global solutions provider Viaccess-Orca, which wanted to market a device for tracking pirates who redistribute illegal video streaming services of sports events. Most of the time, these pirates are sports channel subscribers who illegally re-stream the video of the event in real time, live.
Using digital watermarking technology, b<>com *Tag* embeds an invisible, indelible mark, unique to each subscriber, in these sports event videos, so that when a pirate stream is observed, the subscriber behind it can be traced. The subscriber can then be sent a warning message, or even have their access to the live channel cut off.
Today, combating piracy on TV channels isn't the only area in which b<>com *Tag*can be used. That’s why we are presenting our solution at the FIC in Lille, with new applications including video authentication and video conference protection.
Regarding video authentication, the mark embedded by b<>com *Tag* becomes an integrity check of the video sequence, i.e. it will be possible to verify that all the images are present and intact (no faces or elements have been replaced or deleted, for example). The authentication carried out by b<>com *Tag* is an invaluable aid when the justice system or insurance companies analyze these video sequences as part of video surveillance or dash cam images for example. It means they can be sure that a fraudulent user has not manipulated the videos.
The protection of video conferences is another major challenge identified. Since the pandemic, companies have been making increasing use of video conferencing tools, even when unveiling sensitive information such as a new product release or financial data sharing. In such cases, it’s not hard to imagine an employee with ill intent making a copy of the data displayed on the screen, to pass it on to competitors or journalists. b<>com *Tag* plays a preventive role by embedding a unique mark for each participant in the video conference, so that should any of them leak information, they can easily be traced.
What are the benefits of this watermarking solution?
b<>com *Tag* has been designed to fight against piracy. Because the additional CPU usage of the device on computers or tablets is extremely low, it doesn't use up much power.
Working on real-time sports event piracy also requires a very fast threat search and detection time: for b<>com *Tag*, we are talking about a few minutes at most.
Finally, the solution is effortless to integrate and doesn't need any connection to an external server: watermarks are embedded in a completely autonomous way, without requiring any information exchange.
Will you also be present at the FIC? Come and discuss your cybersecurity needs with our experts!
