Top 5 Security Options for Wowza Streaming Engine
In this video, Rose and Frank discuss security options when streaming with Wowza Streaming Engine. Because content protection underpins monetization and reliability, layering these measures is often a good idea.
Let’s explore the top five options.
5. Security in the Wowza Streaming Engine Manager
By restricting publishing to those with a username and password, source authentication thwarts unauthorized users from streaming to your server. For streams delivered via RTSP and RTMP, broadcasters can configure credentials at an application level in the Wowza Streaming Engine Manager.
4. StreamLock SSL
StreamLock Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates use encryption to scramble the message exchanged between servers and browsers. This helps ensure that streaming data remains secure while traveling across the public internet. We offer StreamLock as a free security certificate option, and anyone can import their own security certificate into Wowza Streaming Engine.
3. Digital Rights Management (DRM)
Digital rights management (DRM) provides an even higher level of on-the-fly encryption. Unlike simple encryption, DRM workflows rely on third-party DRM vendors for more sophisticated protection.
Depending on your business requirements, DRM might be required. This can also be used in conjunction with SSL to encrypt both the content itself, as well as the pipe between the client and the server. Wowza Streaming Engine is integrated with DRM providers to make the process easy.
2. SecureToken
SecureToken uses a security handshake between Wowza Streaming Engine and the client to secure content. Each connection is protected by a random single-use key and a password (shared secret). A secure hashing algorithm and customizable security parameters help validate each client attempting to access a stream. This helps prevent spoofing threats.
1. Protection From Hotlinking
Another word for embedding, hotlinking occurs when someone steals embedded video links or images from your webpage. Luckily, Wowza Streaming Engine can be configured to block hotlinking, ensuring that users can only share content that’s intended to be shared.
Security Best Practices
We recommend that organizations follow best practices to lock down their content. Layering several security options provides the best protection.
Frank Durant, Wowza’s senior software engineer, explains, “I would recommend users to follow a strategy of defense in depth. It is important to only expose infrastructure and resources to people that they need to. This will require that organizations consult operating system infrastructure manuals and follow best practices in those areas and also consult individual components for the software that they’re using.”