Irdeto is the world leader in digital platform cybersecurity, empowering businesses to innovate for a secure, connected future. Building on over 50 years of expertise in security, Irdeto’s services and solutions protect revenue, enable growth and fight cybercrime in video entertainment, video games, and connected industries including transport, health, and infrastructure.
Interview with Peter Oggel, CTO and SVP Technology Operations at Irdeto.
Easy Engineering: A brief description of the company and its activities.
Peter Oggel: With teams around the world, Irdeto’s greatest asset is its people and diversity is celebrated through an inclusive workplace, where everyone has an equal opportunity to drive innovation and support Irdeto’s success. Irdeto is the preferred security partner to empower a secure world where people can connect with confidence.
We have more than 1000 employees in 14 offices around the world, and we protect more than 6 billion devices globally.
E.E: What are the main areas of activity of the company?
P.O: Irdeto’s services and solutions protect revenue, enable growth and fight cybercrime in video entertainment, video games, and connected industries including transport, health, and infrastructure.
E.E: What’s the news about new products?
P.O: For the Video Entertainment industry, the company recently launched the Irdeto Server Side Ad Insertion (SSAI). This new solution maximizes the addressable live ad inventory of OTT video at scale while delivering a seamless ‘TV-like’ viewing experience. It integrates with any ad server or an existing CSAI solution to deliver targeted and personalized ads during live events and on linear channels.
In Connected Transport, our award-winning solution Keystone offers a secure access management platform for off-highway vehicles, including forklifts and construction equipment. It makes smart rental safe and easy to use via a mobile device, enabling companies to continue healthy and safe business operations. The company also signed a valuable partnership with CharIN and UL Solutions to collaborate on the implementation of a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) to enable Plug and Charge in Europe.
In the Connected Health space, Irdeto recently signed partnerships with Terkko, offering its portfolio to startups to help them ensure they have the right security technology and processes in place early in the device lifecycle.
In gaming, Irdeto recently announced a revolutionary technology to protect games launching on Nintendo Switch from piracy. By preventing piracy on Switch while blocking unauthorized emulations on PC, studios can increase their revenue during the game launch window, which is the most important period regarding monetization. The Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection will ensure that anyone wishing to play the game must buy a legitimate copy.
E.E: What are the ranges of products?
P.O: Irdeto is the leading content protection, video broadcast, and streaming solutions and services provider to the media entertainment and broadband industries. Our unique Pay-TV operator heritage, our commitment to service, the quality of our solutions, and our flexibility to address our customer’s needs makes us the trusted partner for the world’s most admired, respected, and successful media and entertainment brands.
In Connected Transport our products and solutions, like Keystone, for example, help to comply with cybersecurity regulations and meet standards in automotive, rail, and beyond. They enable digital transformations and new business models. Ramirent, a leading supplier of rental equipment for construction and other industries, was the first to deploy Irdeto’s Keystone security for construction equipment and a large US-based logistics company was the first to deploy Keystone for fleet.
In Connected Health Irdeto offers layered cybersecurity solutions and services to medical device manufacturers of all sizes throughout the product lifecycle, from design to post-market. Irdeto has been collaborating with Terkko Health Hub, the largest health, MedTech, and life science hub in Finland, to offer its Connected Health portfolio to startups to ensure they have the right processes and security technology in place early in the device lifecycle. Among the new partners is MedTech software company b-rayZ, a spinoff of the University Hospital of Zurich, specialized in developing artificial intelligence software for quality management and standardization of procedures in radiology.
Denuvo by Irdeto has a solid track record of protecting games from the top studios and publishers in the video game industry for over a decade, collaborating with game developers of all sizes to activate solutions like Denuvo Anti-Cheat and Anti-Tamper. Among the new customers relying on Denuvo Mobile protection is Superplus Games, a leading Finnish mobile game developer, who deployed Denuvo Mobile game protection to protect their new release Hills of Steel 2 from cheating and tampering. Other previously communicated wins include M7 Productions implementing Denuvo Anti-Cheat to protect their latest multi-player game Zero Hour.
Peter Oggel, CTO and SVP Technology Operations at Irdeto
E.E: At what stage is the market where you are currently active?
P.O: With more than 50 years of experience in security, Irdeto’s main business vertical continues to be Video Entertainment. It is a well-developed market specially when it comes to traditional satellite pay-TV, but is still maturing in the OTT space, which drives new technologies and cyber challenges for Irdeto to adapt to.
In addition to Video Entertainment, in the past five years the company has been continuously increasing the investments in technology and developing new cybersecurity solutions for Connected Health, Connected Transport and Video Games.
Irdeto Connected Health took significant leaps in expanding its footprint in securing medical devices. Irdeto Connected Transport had an exciting year including many new customer wins. A total of eight new transport customers joined the growing list of transportation companies relying on Irdeto technology.
Denuvo by Irdeto experienced its most successful year to date. The implementation of anti-cheat and anti-piracy solutions for PC, console, and mobile video game publishers and developers continued to grow. Denuvo’s wide network of partnerships was further extended thanks to the positive experiences and testimonials of existing customers and partners.
E.E: What can you tell us about market trends?
P.O: We’ve been really pleased to see the way customers and partners have responded to Irdeto’s new product and service offerings in the past few years. Despite challenging market conditions, including the pandemic as well as disruptions to silicon availability and global supply chains, we have seen strong demand across our key markets.
There are many challenges – as well as opportunities – that digitalization, cloud computing, and AI give us to work with, and there is a clear shift to hyper-personalization when it comes to the end consumer.
E.E: What are the most innovative products marketed?
P.O: Irdeto strengthened its solution portfolio to support its customers’ super aggregator strategy with the launch of the Irdeto RDK Hybrid Stack.
The Reference Design Kit (RDK) is a modular, fully integrated software stack that any operator can use to develop and launch services on a huge range of broadband, broadcast, or hybrid CPE hardware. The Irdeto RDK Hybrid Stack is the first RDK video accelerator solution for Direct to Home (DTH) pay-TV operators in the market that provides a deterministic approach to deploying a hybrid satellite-OTT set-top box due to it being pre-integrated, pre-tested, and pre-certified. With the Irdeto Android TV stack, Irdeto now offers pay-TV operators the choice of the two leading hybrid STB platforms in the market.
In another innovative launch, Irdeto presented its newest solution for advertising in OTT channels. The Server Side Ad Insertion (SSAI) seeks to maximize the value of advertising inventory of premium live OTT channels delivering a TV-like viewing experience at scale. This dynamic ad insertion solution is available to OTT providers that are looking to begin to commercialize their live streaming channels or expand from their current Client-Side Ad Insertion (CSAI) solution. Irdeto SSAI has now been deployed in numerous markets and across sports and general entertainment channels.
In the Connected Transport area, Irdeto has designed a solution aimed at train operators and their suppliers with heterogeneous operational technology systems that are becoming connected and susceptible to cyberthreats. Irdeto Anomaly Detection System (ADS) provides early warning of prepared, attempted, and ongoing intrusions to train operational control systems. Whether modern, connected train networks or legacy fleets, ADS reduces risk and exposure to cyberattacks.
E.E: What estimations do you have for 2022?
P.O: We’ve been really pleased to see the way customers and partners have responded to Irdeto’s new product and service offerings in the past few years. Despite challenging market conditions, including the pandemic as well as disruptions to silicon availability and global supply chains, we have seen strong demand across our key markets.
In the Connected Transport and Connected Health industries, we have seen an increase in the Digitization of core processes, which is leading to opportunities for new business models.
Another perception is that the increase of cyber-attacks is now requiring a full automated defense, zero-trust architecture and overall anomaly detection capabilities to address these issues.
We continue to protect, renew, and empower our customers and we look forward to building our momentum into the financial year 2023 to empower a secure world where people can connect with confidence.
