Media Data Protection during Execution on Mobile Platforms

Purpose and goal

We concluded that there is a pressure from global media distributer to better protect against illegal distribution of media data streamed to, or played on, mobile platforms. This is often also referred to as Digital Rights Management (DRM). To address this problem, the project worked with new technology solutions for protection of media data during execution based on virtualization. During the project, the focus switched from protection of media data towards general protection of sensitive data during mobile platform execution.

Expected results and effects

The goal of the project was to investigate different technologies for protection of sensitive data during execution on mobiles. One objective was to design a new security architecture and to develop a corresponding virtualization layer. Furthermore, another objective was to investigate the possibilities to standardize the interface towards the new software layer. The project succeeded with both providing a new security architecture design and corresponding software and to demonstrate the feasibility of the technology in two prototypes running on a Sony mobile platform.

Planned approach and implementation

We started with a literature study of DRM technologies. Using this as basis, in combination with investigation of needs at Sony mobile, we wrote a requirements specification on protection of media data on mobile platforms. During the second phase, we made a design for protection of media data and general data. This design was then the basis for the development of two prototype systems. The prototypes show how in practice; virtualization can be used to protect data during execution. Finally, both the design and the prototypes were evaluated from performance and security points of views.