LAS VEGAS — Kiersten E. Todt, chief of staff of the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), delivered a message of collaboration against threats during her keynote presentation April 23 at the Anti-Piracy and Content Protection Summit, kicking off the 2022 NAB Show.
“The interconnectedness of things means we don’t have those black, rigid lines between sectors, and that makes everything critical,” Todt said during her presentation “Collaborating on the Culture of Security,” with more than 100 attending in person at the first live NAB Show since the beginning of the pandemic. “[Our focus] is to inform everyone of the threats, so they understand the environment more clearly.
“We’re in this for the long haul. You may not be initial target, but there are reverberations from attacks, because we’re so interconnected.”
The CISA leads the effort to enhance the security, resiliency, and reliability of the nation’s cybersecurity and communications infrastructure. And how CISA is changing and improving culture at the federal level, and how that in terms impacts the state, regional and local agencies and their engagement at an industry level, was the message Todt came to Las Vegas to deliver.
“There are 101 federal agencies, and CISA is responsible for securing all of them,” Todt said of the three-year-old organization. Pointing out that 85 percent of critical infrastructure is privately owned. Todt stressed that “we’re only as good as the partners we have,” and that includes players in the media and entertainment industry.
Russia’s war with Ukraine represents a heightened threat environment, and CISA is heatedly making moves to help industries raise their security postures, and lower the threshold for reporting threats, Todt said. And CISA’s latest effort to help put everyone on more-secure security footing is to push the importance of multi-factor authentication. “How do we get every industry to adopt it?” Todt said. “You’ll address 99 percent of the threats out there.”
Todt and CISA worry that, on an individual level, people don’t take security seriously, that it’s a concern for others to have and deal with. “How do we create a culture where cybersecurity is more welcomed?” Todt said. “Media and entertainment has a role in that, to make it more interesting, and educate its benefits. This isn’t an IT department issue. Anyone can be a malicious actor, and anyone can be an agent of change.”
Above all, Todt’s message for broadcast news and media: you are critical infrastructure, and when it comes to cybersecurity, treat government as a friend, there to help confront challenges and threats you may not be ready to handle alone. “See government as a partner, and the system is only as good as the partnerships we have,” Todt said. “Our goal is to secure the nation, and the best way we can do that is to collaborate and connect.”
Before Todt took the stage, the leaders of the Content Delivery & Security Association (CDSA) offered attendees a high-level update on the state of the industry, and the association, with CDSA president Richard Atkinson calling the organization “the glue” of the content protection and cybersecurity industry for media and entertainment.
Ben Schofield, technical director of CDSA, said that as the industry further embraces virtual production tools and techniques, “we need to make sure our controls can support that environment.” That’s one of the top concerns the association is looking to address in 2022.
Meanwhile, Chris Taylor, director of the Media & Entertainment Information Sharing Analysis Center (ME-ISAC) offered a glimpse of the ME-ISAC’s new member portal, which will be unveiled April 26 during an online event. “[We serve] as the provider of the in-between for all your peers to find out what the threats are,” Taylor said.
The 2022 Anti-Piracy and Content Protection Summit was presented by Richey May Technology Solutions, with sponsorship by Convergent Risks, NAGRA, Verimatrix, BuyDRM, EZDRM, and Vision Media. The summit was produced by MESA, in association with the Content Delivery and Security Association (CDSA), and the media partner for the show was Piracy Monitor.
To find out more about upcoming MESA events or to get involved as a sponsor please contact Evie Silvers at [email protected], or Garrett Finley at [email protected].