Keeping Digital Assets Safe: Security for DAM

The need for an effective DAM solution is growing among companies, but security threats abound

Visual content such as images and video account for much of the content viewed on the internet nowadays. The demand for visual content is growing, which drives marketers everywhere to find ways to manage their increasing digital asset load and deliver content quickly.

Marketers waste the most time looking for the right digital asset to enhance their content, be it an image, a graphic or a video. Using a digital asset management (DAM) system is a good option to keep digital assets organized, searchable and easily shareable.

More companies are choosing to implement a DAM, in addition to cloud storage, to leverage accessibility and scalability. However, the same shareability that characterizes cloud-based DAM also presents security risks derived from storing potentially sensitive media in the cloud. In this article, we’ll cover the top security risks a digital asset management system might face and how to prevent them.

What Is DAM?

Digital asset management (DAM) software stores, organizes, retrieves and manages the rights of an organization’s digital assets or rich media. These types of solutions assign metadata to assets in the form of tags, which contain information such as the filename, its format, content and usage. In addition, it centralizes and distributes the assets across entities.

Rich media refers to a file that provides value to the company and typically is stored with metadata attached to make it easily searchable. Typical examples include photos, audio files, logos, graphics, illustrations, animations and screenshots.

Most DAM solutions include the following features:

  • Central Repository: A DAM works as a centralized library, providing a single and secure search system. This allows finding the latest approved versions for their projects. In addition, you can set the workflows configuration to automate when to tag and attach metadata to assets before uploading.
  • Streamlining Workflows: Having all your assets updated and at hand helps your marketing team to manage their works in progress. They can easily assign, review and approving tasks, thus the DAM doubles as a project management tool.
  • Easy sharing and distributing: The marketing team can share and deliver digital assets to individuals and teams. In addition, the system allows for streaming directly to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Security Risks for Digital Asset Management and How to Mitigate Them

Sharing and storing sensitive assets on the cloud presents some challenges and risks that should be addressed. Below are some of the main risks that a digital asset management system presents.

Universal Sharing

What is one of the most sought after features is also a source of risk. Users share the files straight from the platform without using cumbersome email attachments or FTPs. However, this means malicious insiders can get hold of protected assets, delivering it to attackers.

Solution: Implement the principle of least privilege, use two-way authentication, whitelisting file destinations.

Central Information Hub

While a central hub streamlines the content management, by searching and visualizing all through the dashboard, it also presents a clear risk. When an account is compromised, for example, by a malicious insider or an attacker getting control of an account, it could result in the threat actor gaining access to all the organization’s digital assets.

Solution: UEBA is a very useful tool to monitor and control suspicious behavior on privileged accounts. It can lock out users when detecting suspicious actions and even threat-hunt to discover vulnerabilities in the central DAM repository.

Automated Tasks

Most of the DAM platform processes are automated to ensure a seamless workflow. Tasks such as sharing content with members of the same teams or distributing assets to clients and converting files are fulfilled automatically. The issue is that the automated processes can be exploited, exposing the whole workflow channel and eventually causing data loss or leaking sensitive assets to attackers.

Solution: Periodically audit security automation scripts, limit commands in automation or control the logging and alerting of automatic processes.

Collaboration Tools

This feature allows team members to work together in a project, sharing versions, comment and edit. However, should one of their accounts get compromised, it can pose a security risk since they can easily share data with malicious outsiders.

Solution: Using multi-factor authentication, blocking collaboration with third parties without authorization can help keep the assets in the house. Moreover, constant monitoring and auditing using a security built-in feature prevent unauthorized parties from accessing sensitive data.

Other DAM Security Best Practices

Aside from the risks mentioned above, it is important to check your overall security posture regarding your digital assets. You can start by considering the aspects listed below.

Visibility Over Digital Assets

You should have a single view of the data across the database environment and network and the people accessing it. This is also true when the assets are being shared through mobile devices, for example in companies with bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies.

A Proactive Approach to Security

Most companies have a reactive approach to security, acting only when they are attacked. In an interconnected environment such as digital asset management, it is extremely important to actively monitor the network for threats, be it insider or external attackers.

Having Compliance Protocols in Place

You should be able to configure baseline security protocols across the data environments. Complying with regulations such as PCI-DSS and GDPR is a must for companies working across geographically distributed environments.

That being said, taking care of securing valuable digital assets can be a hassle, and not all companies have an IT security team in-house. Luckily, the best digital asset management solutions include built-in security features such as two-way authentication and User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) to ensure the assets are securely managed.

Wrap Up

Having their assets on the cloud allows organizations to take advantage of the cloud scalability and provides access to geographically distributed teams. A cloud DAM improves the ROI by minimizing the time wasted on searching for, accessing and distributing media assets.

On the other hand, cloud DAMs raise significant security concerns. Their open access to the internet, combined with their centralized management, can result in data breach scenarios, given that an attacker only needs to compromise one account. Basic security practices such as multi-factor authentication, logging and monitoring can help prevent and mitigate these security risks.

Gilad David Maayan

Avatar photo

Gilad David Maayan

Gilad David Maayan is a technology writer who has worked with over 150 technology companies including SAP, Oracle, Zend, CheckPoint and Ixia, producing technical and thought leadership content that elucidates technical solutions for developers and IT leadership.

gilad-david-maayan has 44 posts and counting.See all posts by gilad-david-maayan