MovieLabs sets out cloud production security principles
December 10, 2019
By Colin Mann
Movie industry non-profit technology research lab Motion Pictures Laboratories (MovieLabs), together with member studios, has published a new white paper – The Evolution of Production Security – Securing the 10-Year Vision for the Evolution of Media Creation – that lays out security principles for the future of production where all assets will be stored in the cloud and all processing of those assets will run in the cloud.
This new white paper is a companion to the MovieLabs paper published in August 2019 – Evolution of Media Creation – which laid out what it describes a ‘bold vision’ for the state of filmmaking ten years in the future, with a call to action for the industry to collaborate on realising the deep potential of cloud production. By quickly following with the new security white paper, MovieLabs says it rapidly continues to drive the studios vision towards a cloud-enabled future with dynamic workflows defined by software.
This new white paper uses the cybersecurity industry’s dictum of ‘security by design’, and presents six primary security principles for cloud production:
- Security is intrinsic to every component of every workflow and does not inhibit the creative process.
- The security architecture addresses requirements specific to cloud-based workflows.
- Production workflows, processes and assets are kept secure even on untrusted infrastructure.
- Content owners control security and workflow integrity.
- Security can be scaled to appropriate levels and can integrate with existing security policy and management systems.
- The security architecture limits the spread of any breach and adapts to the evolving threat and response landscape.
“When we published the ‘Evolution of Media Production’ paper in the summer, we wanted to catalyse an industry dialog and fuel innovation,” explains Richard Berger, CEO MovieLabs. “The response has been amazing, and we are engaging with a large community of like-minded companies that support this vision. While our first white paper touched on security, we realised the need to release a companion white paper that ‘double-clicks’ on it to further articulate the new approach required to secure cloud-native workflows. Our goal is to help guide the industry to a shared security architecture that provides the underlying protection for future media assets and the future workflows that produce them.”