How Do I Enable AES Encryption in my Dacast Account?

Introduction

The core component of the new ‘Dacast Secure’ delivery is encrypted video streaming. Simply put, the video data that we send from our servers to your embedded players are encrypted so that, even if somebody were able to somehow get their hands on the stream between the server and player, it wouldn’t be of any use because they’d be unable, practically speaking, to decrypt the data and get their hands on your video content

It’s important to stress that our implementation is all server-level – not browser-level – authentication so that makes it impossible for anybody who goes poking in your page sources to see how it works and somehow circumvent it.

The encryption standard we use is called AES – which stands for ‘Advanced Encryption Standard’ – and is a widely-embraced standard used all over the world. It’s been adopted by the US Government and is approved for use by the NSA for securing ‘top secret’ data. In short – it’s very secure. If you are interested to read the standard itself, it’s here:  FIPS 197, Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)

Benefits

AES video encryption can be extremely valuable to anyone who needs to keep the video private. AES video encryption prevents “Man-in-the-Middle” (MITM) style hacking attacks. In this type of attack, someone intercepts network traffic maliciously. He is trying to steal sensitive data.

You may have heard that using public, unsecured WiFi networks can be dangerous. MITM attacks are the reason why.

AES video encryption allows you to halt these types of attacks completely. Anyone snooping on your streams will be stymied by AES encryption. This provides protection against piracy, data theft, intellectual property appropriation, and more.

Who Can Access Dacast’s AES?

Dacast’s AES is available to users with the following plans:

  • Free trials (only during the 14-day trial)
  • Scale plans and above

How to enable it with Dacast?

You can activate this option very easily from your Dacast account. 

You can do it for existing or new videos on-demand:

Enable AES for new or existing VOD

In this example, we will choose an existing video.  

Click on the “Security” tab of your top menu: 

vod Menu security selection

Enable the AES option as followed:

AES enable

And click “Save”

Save AES option last step

Your video is now protected against unauthorized downloads.

For more information about AES, please see our blog article on this subject. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact us.

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Additional Resources

Harmonie Duhamel

Harmonie is a Senior digital marketer with over 6 years in the Tech Industry. She has a strong marketing and sales background and loves to work in multilingual environments.