Securing digital content across the value chain for In-Flight Entertainment (IFE) poses unique challenges. Studios, labs, integrators and airlines must all work together to protect the content en route. Often, each of these players uses a different security method. With no consistent system in place, securing content is both cumbersome and often inadequate.

Cinea’s COSMOS-IFE is a comprehensive security solution that fully protects IFE digital content from authoring through display, and provides the information needed to identify and guard against security breaches. It is also easily adapted for use in other non-theatrical markets, such as hotels, cruise ships, college campuses and hospitals.

COSMOS-IFE Components

COSMOS-IFE delivers comprehensive key management, order management, highly secure encryption/decryption, expert auditing/reporting and consulting services.

Central Key Management

This back-end system, managed by Cinea, handles key generation and authorization, distribution and renewal. Keys and content are delivered to users separately, enabling content to be transferred or stored encrypted without risk of piracy. Studios authorize content use via a secure web link and have the option of Cinea’s system uploading these authorizations directly from their in-house order entry systems.

The back-end includes a certificate authority to ensure that key exchanges only occur with clients that have valid certificates. This process ensures correct keys are automatically provided to intended recipients for the authorized period. It eliminates the need for each user to keep track of which key is the correct one to use and, more importantly, eliminates the risk of keys being intercepted by the wrong person, including content pirates.

Order Management

Cinea offers the COSMOS-IFE web server for content owners to create security authorization orders. The labs reference those orders to create content files and encrypt those files for transfer to the integrators. The server manages the associations between the content owners, labs and integrators so that each user has visibility to their orders. This provides a convenient reference for users to coordinate their activity to complete these orders.

Encryption/Decryption

Cinea offers the COSMOS-IFE encryption client as a software utility to complement the central key management and the web server. This client encrypts content and uploads keys on the sending side, and downloads and decrypts content on the receiving side. The COSMOS-IFE encryption client performs an optimized AES 128-bit encryption and adds metadata to the file to enable automatic key selection for decryption. All communications with the central key server are highly secure, with multiple levels including hashing and certificate validation.

Auditing & Reporting Services

To help studios improve security, Cinea’s anti-piracy experts monitor systems logs and diagnostics for COSMOS IFE transactions. Exceptions are brought to the attention of the content owners for further investigation.

Consulting Services

Cinea annually evaluates the security approaches of other IFE systems to evaluate the potential for integration of COSMOS IFE security features all the way from the content owner to the in-flight equipment on the plane. Cinea is also an active member of the Worldwide Airline Entertainment Association (WAEA) content management working group, which is developing specifications for next-generation IFE systems.