Strong authentication for secure content access in converged networks

Increasing the revenue through monetization of content is becoming the priority for content owners and service providers. Portable devices such as smartphones and other audio and video devices have joined computers as end-user devices for accessing digital content over the Internet. This increases the revenue potential and also the security risks and protection requirements. Strong authentication of the user and access device is fundamental to prevent revenue leakage and is a necessary prerequisite for other security controls such as DRMs and encryption between media server and client. This article proposes a strong authentication mechanism for authenticating the user and the device using digital certificate and Device ID along with the conventional User ID - password. A Secure Video Store application implemented with the proposed strong authentication and showcased to leading telecom operators is described in this paper as a case study.