The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show is one of the media and entertainment industry’s premier events, bringing together professionals from across the broadcasting, streaming and media technology sectors.
Each year, thousands of organizations gather in Las Vegas to explore the future of media, covering everything from production tools to distribution platforms in cybersecurity. This year, the NAB Show drew an estimated 60,000 attendees from more than 150 countries, highlighting not only the scale of the industry, but also its growing complexity and interconnected risks.
Content security took center stage at this year’s event, with broadcasters, over-the-top (OTT) platforms and media tech companies emphasizing the urgent need to protect premium assets amid the rise in credential theft, content scraping and AI-driven piracy. Representatives from DoveRunner attended NAB 2025 to meet with content owners, distributors, technologists and security leaders—and to learn firsthand how piracy threats are changing and where companies still have gaps in their defenses.
Here is what the team at DoveRunner learned:
Content Protection is Moving Beyond DRM
Many broadcasters, OTT platforms, and media tech companies are now prioritizing content security, especially with increasing incidents of piracy, credential sharing and CDN leeching. As a result, the conversation has expanded beyond Digital Rights Management (DRM) to a full-stack approach. In fact, according to DoveRunner Research’s Anti-Piracy Report, nearly one in four piracy incidents involve exploits that bypass or circumvent DRM entirely via password sharing and livestreaming pirated content, signaling a growing need for complementary security layers.
A modern, full-stack strategy includes:
- Mobile threat defense, including runtime application self-protection
- Forensic watermarking
- Real-time anti-piracy enforcement
- Credential abuse prevention
Another major theme was the growing concern over vulnerabilities due to AI. Attendees expressed a need to secure AI models integrated into media workflows and to prevent AI-driven attacks such as deepfakes and AI-based content scraping.
Piracy Threats are Growing in Complexity
The most pressing concerns voiced by media and streaming platforms center on four key areas:
- Widevine Key hijacking, which can lead to massive content leaks
- Turnaround time for anti-piracy services, especially for live and premium events
- CDN leeching, where unauthorized parties tap into delivery networks to stream stolen content
- Speed and accuracy of forensic watermarking (FWM) detection, particularly for short-form and repackaged media
The DoveRunner report revealed that CDN leeching alone accounted for 18% of all piracy cases tracked in the past year, making it one of the fastest-growing content theft methods in 2024.
A common theme among enterprise buyers at NAB is the desire for an integrated solution that addresses all of these concerns proactively. Fragmented approaches with multiple point solutions are increasingly seen as inefficient and difficult to manage at scale, especially with ROI an ongoing question when it comes to protection.
Rapid Evolution of Piracy Tactics: Staying Ahead of Threats
According to MUSO, in 2015, most piracy tactics lived on illegal streaming sites, which saw a total of 57.8 billion visits that year. By 2023, there were 229.4 billion global visits to such sites. And that doesn’t include today’s use of social media platforms and FAST (Free Ad-Supported TV) channels to restream premium content. This often involves subtle manipulations—such as altering frame rates, cropping or overlaying video elements—to bypass traditional detection methods.
These tactics demand more sophisticated monitoring and enforcement strategies. Standard fingerprinting and watermarking tools, while still valuable, must evolve to detect altered or repurposed content in real time.
Regionally, Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe continue to present high-risk zones for piracy, with challenges ranging from legal enforcement gaps to highly organized redistribution networks.
Challenges in Implementing Effective Security Measures
Despite rising awareness, many media and streaming organizations still treat content security as a compliance checkbox rather than a strategic initiative. Common issues include:
- Limited visibility into where and how content is leaking
- Low investment in app-level protections, especially for mobile and OTT environments
- Lack of alignment between security efforts and ROI
- Siloed ownership, where content protection sits with the OTT or DRM team rather than integrating with cybersecurity or product
These gaps increase the risk of reputational damage and revenue loss—particularly for premium properties and live events. Offerings, however, are evolving. For example, vendors at NAB discussed bundling real-time piracy conversation monitoring on Telegram, Discord, Reddit and dark web forums into a managed service offering. Some organizations are even integrating Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedowns into their workflows.
Addressing these challenges will require a more coordinated and strategic approach to content security, particularly as piracy techniques continue to evolve in both scale and sophistication.
Strategic Path Forward: Embracing Unified Content Protection
The conversations at NAB 2025 made it clear: partial measures are no longer enough. Modern content protection requires a unified strategy that combines preemptive safeguards, real-time enforcement and intelligent monitoring across all platforms and distribution channels.
For media companies, OTT platforms, content distributors and other organizations that own and distribute content, the next phase of content security will be defined by integration, automation and agility. Organizations that invest in full-stack protection—across mobile, web and streaming—will be better positioned to protect revenue, preserve brand trust and maintain compliance in a fast-changing threat landscape.
