How companies can use Digital Rights Management (DRM) Tool to strengthen their content security
When your organization starts generating data, the onus is on you to maintain the confidentiality of such information. It is here that content protection and security plays a vital role. You can protect your content from unauthorized access or use through encryption and only share the decryption keys with the authorized users.
But, what would you do if any authorized user shared his or her secret credentials with someone else? What if the authorized person modified the content in a manner that is not acceptable by you?
Users can do this, even when you have enabled content protection through encryption. This is because you do not have content protection, once it is in the hands of an authorized user when you only use encryption technology to secure your content.
This is why it is important to enhance your content security even further by using comprehensive Digital Rights Management (DRM) content security software. A tool that gives you DRM controls ensures the security of your content and can serve the purpose of avoiding the misuse of your content by controlling who can view your content and till when (expiry date), what he or she can do with the files (print, copy, etc.), and more. So, with DRM, you can fill the security gaps by using different content security methods.
For example, DRM handles the creation, management, and distribution of keys on its own, without depending on any third parties. The DRM solution also uses cryptography which involves some kind of digital signature.
A key activity for a DRM-enabled content security solution is to identify whether the content (data) has been modified. It is able to do so by running a mathematical algorithm (one-way digest) for the content which has been selected for protection. This leads to the creation of a numeric value that is unique to that content.
You can choose to run this algorithm at frequent time intervals and compare the latest result (numeric value) with the previous one. As long as the results match, you can rest assured that the document has not been modified and has come from the authorized source. Such a mechanism helps to tackle the problem of hackers who may try to use fake identities to modify the content.
Thus, a content protection and security tool equipped with DRM mechanisms allow you to prevent unauthorized access or use and keep the content secure, even after it is used by the authorized user. You can also control whether you want to allow or prevent any authorized users to copy or print the documents that are highly confidential. And, even if you allow authorized users to view your content, you can place an expiry date beyond which those users will not be able to continue viewing the document.
You could say that, while content protection was already possible without DRM, its presence will help you extend security for authorized users and strengthen your overall content security.
Do you have any prior experience of using a content protection tool or a DRM content security tool? Feel free to share your feedback, input or queries in the comments section below.
