Logic Video Platform

Securing Your Video with AES 128

AES stands for “Advanced Encryption Standard.” TechTarget says that AES encryption is “a symmetric block cipher chosen by the U.S. government to protect classified information and is implemented in software and hardware throughout the world to encrypt sensitive data.”

In video streaming, broadcasters can use AES video encryption for secure streaming. When the video is encrypted, a special key scrambles the video content. 

Unless the viewer has the correct access key, they can’t watch the video. Furthermore, if they try to intercept it, all they’ll see is a scrambled mess of useless data. Authorized viewers will access AES-encrypted video via their web browser and a secure HTTPS connection.

This entire process plays out in a way that’s transparent to the users. All they have to do is gain legitimate access to the video, by logging in or accessing the right website. The encryption process may be invisible but it provides a significant layer of protection against interception and piracy.

Who Needs AES Video Encryption?

Simply put, online video encryption can be extremely valuable to anyone who needs to keep the video private. If you need to protect your valuable video content from being viewed or stolen by unauthorized people, AES is for you.

For example, if you have private internal content or if you sell video courses online your videos must remain exclusive. In those cases, videos should remain for subscribers or your internal team only.

AES often works in combination with other security measures to keep your videos as secure as possible.

Although anyone can use AES vide encryption, here are a few types of businesses and industries that benefit from this security measure:

• Government organizations
• Enterprises
• SMBs
• OTT and entertainment companies
• Education and eLearning
• Lawyers

For OTT streaming and entertainment businesses, avoiding content piracy is essential to the business model. For educational institutions and eLearning businesses, the stakes are similarly high. AES encryption can also be highly valuable in corporate and government settings, where unauthorized data leaks can be a significant issue.

Anyone who wants to keep their video content from being copied should consider AES video encryption. Piracy costs the U.S. economy more than $20 billion per year. The price tag internationally, however, is even bigger.

Benefits of Encrypting Video Streams

AES video encryption prevents “Man-in-the-Middle” (MITM) style hacking attacks. In this type of attack, someone intercepts network traffic to steal sensitive data.

You may have heard that using public, unsecured WiFi networks can be dangerous, and MITM attacks are the reason why. For example, if you log in to your bank at the local Starbucks, and you might have exposed your financial details to a hacker.

In general, these types of attacks are relatively simple. Tools such as packet sniffers are widely available, and any person with even a little technical knowledge can download and get one running easily. 

More concerning, however, are the professional hackers. These individuals look to gather sensitive information, corporate details, and the latest popular video content to resell on the dark web. This a growing problem. 

Akamai, one of our top-tier content delivery networks, has found that credential theft for online video subscriptions is a major issue. Millions of accounts are compromised every year.

AES video encryption allows you to prevent these types of attacks completely. Anyone snooping on your streams will be halted by AES encryption. This gives you protection against piracy, data theft, intellectual property appropriation, and more.

Technical Overview of AES Development and Strength

As computers have grown more powerful, data encryption technology has been forced to grow stronger, as well. AES was originally released in 2002 by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. It was designed to be as secure as possible, be free, and be relatively easy for programmers to implement.

Since then, AES has proven itself to be a strong and reliable encryption method. It’s still widely used in banking, government, military, and business. 

AES is free, open-source, and built-in to the hardware and software of many devices. Any time you connect to a secure WiFi network or use a VOIP calling app, you’re using AES.

Whether it’s used in video or for anything else, AES works the same way. It uses the Rijndael algorithm and symmetrical block ciphers to encrypt the content. This is a complex process of mathematical substitution that repeats to turn content in a jumbled mash. 

Unless the proper key is applied, the data is completely worthless. For example, AES encryption may turn this very sentence into something like “aflkjsfasf12 324spoudsafa 23dsgmzxc qpoaqwe67 asdj2k39.”

However, it’s important to be aware that it is possible to bypass AES video encryption. Like most security measures, it won’t stop someone who has legitimate access to your content from duplicating it, since anyone can point a video camera at their screen and duplicate your content.

Therefore, AES should be just one part of your larger security strategy.

AES-128

There are some variations within AES technology. The AES standard uses key sizes of 128, 192, or 256 bits. This means that the key (or the secret code that secures the content) is either 128, 192, or 256 characters in length.

Those with the proper encryption key can use it to reverse the encryption process and see the original unencrypted data. 

In general, AES-128 should be plenty secure for most use-cases. If you’re sending particularly sensitive information, you can choose to use AES-256. The only drawback is that encoding and playing back this video will require a little more CPU resources from your viewers.