Contact Us

Pay TV & Media: Protect Content, Devices, and Revenue from Physical Attacks

Pay TV platforms and digital media systems rely on secure encryption to protect premium content, user credentials, digital rights, and ultimately revenue. But today’s attackers target the physical implementation of cryptography using side-channel analysis (SCA) and fault injection attacks (FIA) to extract keys, bypass DRM, or compromise firmware.

FortifyIQ hardened cryptographic software libraries, in particular, are deployed by a leading Pay TV operator, protecting millions of devices already in the field. These libraries are compatible with a wide range of platforms, including smart TVs, set-top boxes, streaming dongles, and content distribution infrastructure. They complement our rich portfolio of SCA/FIA-resistant hardware IP cores.

Security Challenges in Pay TV and Media

Content delivery platforms face unique threats to both security and monetization:

Key Extraction via Physical Attacks

Attackers with temporary physical access (e.g., retail devices, rentals) use SCA or FIA to extract decryption keys or firmware secrets, undermining DRM, pirating content, or enabling large-scale distribution of unauthorized content.

Fault Injection for Control Bypass

Voltage glitching, clock manipulation, and EM pulse attacks can skip or alter cryptographic instructions, allowing attackers to bypass secure boot or inject malicious firmware.

Legacy & Cost-Constrained Hardware

Many deployed systems lack secure elements or hardware crypto accelerators. These devices still require compliance with modern content protection standards.

Real-Time Performance Requirements

Video decryption must occur on-the-fly, with tight latency constraints. Cryptographic protection must be hardened without degrading streaming performance.

Regulatory and Platform Compliance

DRM ecosystems (e.g., Widevine, PlayReady) and regional regulations (e.g., FIPS 140-3, Common Criteria AVA_VAN.5 ) increasingly demand provable physical security measures for cryptographic systems.

Why FortifyIQ ?

FortifyIQ enables media platforms to deploy robust, efficient cryptographic protections that resist real-world physical attacks with minimal performance tradeoffs.

Field-proven in millions of deployed chips in the exposed Pay TV application, with no compromised security.

Resists side-channel and fault injection attacks; Validated in simulation and lab.

Handles UHD premium content securely and in real time.

Low overhead even in software: up to 900 Mbps on 3.4 GHz CPU; ~100 Mbps on legacy 1.1 GHz mobile cores with our secure AES software libraries

Hardware IP cores or software-only with no hardware security module required.

Supports full DRM lifecycle: secure boot, license validation, key exchange

FortifyIQ Provides:

  • Cryptographic modules enabling protection against side-channel and fault injection attacks for DRM and Ultra HD content.
  • Support for secure content decryption, key management, and secure boot.
  • Validation evidence aligned with all levels of FIPS 140-3 and Common Criteria standards.
hidden pop-up loading entrer point

FortifyIQ Security Solutions for TV & Media

Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) in Software (soon) and Hardware

PQC libraries and IP cores are designed to secure content delivery systems against future quantum-era attacks, with full protection against physical threats.

  • SideChannel Studio and FaultInjection Studio simulate real-world SCA/FIA attacks at the RTL level.
  • Pinpoint vulnerabilities down to the gate, and mitigate them before tapeout.
  • Avoid costly redesigns and revalidation.
  • Post-silicon assessments supported with the same tools.

Hardware IP for Media SoC Vendors

For silicon vendors building next-generation secure media SoCs:

  • Drop-in hardened IP cores for AES, HMAC, PKA (ECC/RSA), and PQC
  • Designed to withstand 1 billion+ trace SCA and fault injection tests
  • Exceptional power, performance, and area (PPA)
  • Suitable for set-top boxes, OTT dongles, smart TVs, and in-home broadcast receivers
  • Enables compliance with platform requirements (Widevine, PlayReady, Netflix, DVB-CI+)

Software Crypto Libraries for
Content Protection and DRM Integrity

Ideal for set-top boxes, streaming devices, and SoCs without hardware crypto:

  • Hardened AES and HMAC-SHA2 libraries resistant to SCA and FIA
  • Secure decryption of high-bandwidth media streams (e.g., UHD, HDR)
  • Supports secure boot, license enforcement, digital signatures, and content authentication
  • Hardened public key software library (ECC, RSA, etc.) for public key operations such as secure boot, license, and entitlement validation
  • Validated to resist physical attacks on code execution paths, keys, and memory state
  • Enables compliance with FIPS 140-3 (at all levels), Common Criteria, including AVA_VAN.5, and broadcast/content security standards
  • OTA-deployable protection for legacy platforms with no hardware changes needed

Use Cases: Securing the Digital Media Pipeline

FortifyIQ protects media content and revenue at every step of the playback chain:

Set-Top Boxes & Smart TVs

Prevent key theft and firmware bypass

Streaming Dongles & Media Players

Add physical attack resistance without new silicon

Broadcast & OTT Platforms

Enforce license controls and DRM policies in constrained edge devices

V2X & Telematics

Safeguard communications with tamper-resistant, quantum-safe cryptographic keys.

Content Decryption Modules

Secure video pipelines in real time

Media SoCs

Embed hardened crypto cores (AES, HMAC, PKA, PQC) to meet compliance, with minimal area or power increase

Firmware & License Updates

Ensure authenticity and integrity using physically hardened digital signatures (ECC/RSA, PQC)

Secure, Deployed, and
Future-Ready

FortifyIQ is already protecting premium content at scale and is ready to meet the evolving security demands of the media ecosystem.

  • Hardened cryptography proven in the field on real hardware
  • Validated against physical attacks meeting Common Criteria AVA_VAN.5
  • Deployable on legacy or new platforms with no hardware dependencies
  • Post-quantum-ready: AES-256 and HMAC-SHA-512 in software and hardware
  • PQC available in hardware now; software version coming soon
  • Designed for high-throughput, low-latency streaming environments

Let's Secure the Future of
 Digital Content

Whether you’re building a media SoC, securing an installed base, or defending content at the edge, FortifyIQ delivers physical attack resistance, DRM integrity, and real-time cryptographic assurance.

Contact Our
Experts
Fortify’s AES security evaluation by SGS

“Summary. The leakage analysis (Welch t-test) on over 30 million traces did not show statistically significant first- and second-order differences between trace sets with fixed and random inputs. The template-based DPA analysis, on the pseudo-random trace set for the profiling phase (15 million traces) and on a sub-set of 300k fix input traces for matching phase targeting the first-round S-box output, and template attack on ciphertext, did not indicate any potential information leakage.”

” The results for the soft IP presented in the report were obtained on the TOE which is the basic hardware implementation of the soft IP without additional levels of security (e.g. that are present in a secure silicon layout). Therefore the internal strength of the soft IP itself was evaluated. This indicates that the investigated features and parameters of the soft IP implementation should be robust against SCA and fault injection attacks in different implementations including ASIC. Nevertheless, according to the Common Criteria rules, the strength of the final composite product must be evaluated on its own.”

Request Technical Details