IP cameras: digital watermark & media security technologies

With the popularity of international standard video codec algorithms and the constant updates of video and audio processing technologies, video editing applications have become rather mature, which promote the reverse encoding and video tampering threats. Therefore, the integrity of video data and the security of data transmission must be considered and ensured by a mature video surveillance solution. Taking account of this industry demands, Hisilicon integrates the digital watermark technology and media security encryption technology into network cameras to effectively prevent video and audio files from being tampered and repudiated, ensuring the integrity, authenticity, and security of media data.

Digital watermark technology

The IPC outputs code streams through the video encoder together with the stream frame's watermark information including the number of current frame bytes, time, Media Access Control (MAC) address, and serial number of the device. As protection information, the watermark, which is customizable, is placed in the code stream data packet and transmitted or stored along with the compressed media stream. The media playing side decodes the code stream data packet and compares the obtained watermark information with the original watermark information. In this way, the security and integrity of the media stream are checked. If the media stream is invalid, the system generates an alarm.

Media security technology

The IVS platform generates and sends the initial encryption information to the IPC. Then the IPC calculates the final encryption key according to the negotiated encryption rules; uses it to encrypt video; and sends the encrypted video to the IVS platform, which then decrypts the video.