German media production technology supplier Riedel Networks has become a member of the Security4Media association founded by EBU and several public media organisations in September 2024.
Riedel joins other recent additions Rai (Italy) and RTÉ (Ireland) as well as ARD (Germany), ORF (Austria), SR (Sweden), SWISS Txt, RTS (Serbia) and NRK (Norway), who are already active in the new association dedicated to enhancing cybersecurity in the media technology domain.
“The foundation of such an association is a step in the right direction for the broadcast sector, because it sends out a signal that IT security also plays an enormously important role in the media sector and must be given greater focus,” said Michael Martens, CEO of Riedel Networks.
Security4Media aims to support the media technology industry by identifying vulnerabilities in media systems and solutions, streamlining the vulnerability management process with vendors and speeding up remediation. The organisation is also setting up to perform security audits and provide labels to organisations that implement cybersecurity best practices.
With the issue of disinformation and fake news emerging as an adjacent challenge to cybersecurity, the Security4Media association now also intends to take on the topic of content provenance tracing.
The underlying idea of content provenance tracing is to encode and expose the source of a piece of content and any modifications. “Applied at scale, this could help to create islands of trust and transparency in a sea of fake news and disinformation – a topic given additional relevance with global social media networks intending to scale down content moderation and fact checking,” according to EBU.
Approaches such as the Coalition for Content provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) adopt the idea to a mix of technical solution and services, governed by a neutral entity.
With its remit rooted in the technical domain, Security4Media intends to focus on promoting open standards for content authenticity, facilitate the creation of solutions that ensure the integrity of content from creation to distribution, safeguarding fairness and trust between media and tech companies. The association also emphasises improving media literacy, empowering users and protecting the legal rights of content owners as important elements.
