Page 237 - Cyber Defense eMagazine August 2024

Watermarking and chain of custody

For creatives who work with visual media, especially—but really for anyone who works with high-value
data remotely—it’s also a good idea to use both visible and invisible watermarking, along with tracking
all data movement through a recorded chain of custody.

Visible watermarks are useful in that they tell the world a piece of content or file is yours. But a savvy
user can also remove or crop them out fairly easily.

That’s why forensic watermarking exists. Forensic watermarking embeds an imperceptible, metadata-
infused mark that gives content owners valuable intel on who has viewed their content. This can help
content owners track down the perpetrators in case of a data leak.

Forensic watermarks are imperceptible, robust—they should never break, even if the host file is
dramatically altered—and are impossible to modify or alter.

The Importance of Security for Remote Workflows

Remote workers who deal with sensitive and valuable data and files need to take security as seriously
as any corporate IT team.

While the resources you have at your disposal aren’t quite the same as the head of IT for a Fortune 500
company, there are several simple steps you can take to lock down your workflow, including:

• Securing remote connections and hardware.
• Using identity access management and the principle of least privilege.
• Encrypting all files both in flight and at rest.
• Document watermarking and chain of custody.

By following these best practices and encouraging a culture of security among you and all your
stakeholders, you can ensure your data stays secure—and avoid getting you, your company, or your
partners placed on a data breach list.

About the Author

Majed Alhajry is the CTO of MASV, the fastest large file transfer solution for media
organizations. Majed’s passion lies in discovering novel solutions for complex
technical problems, and he is an expert in the transfer of large files, both local and
global, as well as in networking acceleration technology and application layer
protocols.

Majed can be reached online at https://www.linkedin.com/in/majed-alhajry-
3a39a410/?originalSubdomain=ca and at the company website: https://massive.io/

Cyber Defense eMagazine – August 2024 Edition 237
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