Whether you're sharing media assets across the building or across the world, you must be confident that your media asset management (MAM) solution will protect your files from unauthorized access, interception, and third-party vulnerabilities. Your media and intellectual property are too valuable to risk, so make sure that your MAM system is equipped with the right safeguards, including SOC 2 certification and compliance to meet stringent data security standards.

What is SOC 2 compliance?

Service Organization Control 2, or SOC 2 compliance, is a certification that ensures a service provider manages data according to a strict set of standards. 

SOC 2 compliance is based on five core trust principles:

• Security
• Availability
• Processing integrity
• Confidentiality
• Privacy

Together, these principles provide a framework that protects sensitive data, ensures reliable system operations, and builds trust with users.

Why SOC 2 compliance matters in MAM

SOC 2 compliance ensures your MAM solution is equipped to protect your media assets from unauthorized access, data breaches, and accidental loss. SOC 2 standards provide peace of mind that you can share files and collaborate effortlessly with internal teams, external stakeholders, and third-party vendors without compromising data integrity.

Because SOC 2 standards are reviewed and updated regularly, compliant MAM solutions help future-proof your security posture and stay ahead of evolving threats. 

Reducing risk with SOC 2-compliant media management and collaboration tools 

Whether you're sending soundtrack edits for final review, gameday recordings to a broadcast partner, or dailies to your remote production team, your media must be  secure. SOC 2 compliance requires strict controls that address the top security challenges of MAM solutions.

Here are four ways SOC 2-compliant MAM solutions reduce your risk:

1. Prevention of unauthorized access and deterrence of data breaches

Proprietary content, client projects, and intellectual property are prime targets for threat actors. If access management controls are weak or misconfigured, sensitive data may be accessible to malicious or unauthorized users, leading to data breaches, intellectual property theft, or project leaks that can cause significant revenue losses and reputational damage.

SOC 2 certification requires MAM solutions to enforce security protocols such as multi-factor authentication, role-based access, and user activity monitoring to ensure that only authorized users have access to sensitive files.

2. Encrypted data in transit and at rest

In today’s highly distributed work environments, media assets frequently move between on-premise and cloud storage and across different teams. Unencrypted data is vulnerable to interception during transit or unauthorized access while stored, putting it at risk for exploitation that can cause financial, operational, and reputational harm to your business.

SOC 2 standards help secure sensitive media managed by your MAM system by:

• Mandating data encryption at rest and in transit using industry-standard protocols such as AES-256 and transport layer security (TLS)
• Verifying that encryption keys are securely managed and rotated periodically
• Regularly testing encryption methods to ensure they meet compliance standards

3. Secure integration points

During the course of a project, your MAM solution integrates with potentially dozens of different third-party tools and systems, such as creative applications, analytics platforms, or external storage providers. Each of these integration points is a potential vulnerability, and it takes only one weak point to create an opening for threat actors to compromise the security of the entire MAM system.

SOC 2 compliance reduces the risk of third-party vulnerabilities and safeguards the integrity of your assets by requiring the MAM solution provider to conduct detailed risk assessments for all integrations with third-party tools, implement secure API protocols, and verify that data shared with external systems is encrypted and protected.

4. Strong user permissions management

Over-permissioning user roles — for example, giving an editorial intern administrator-level network permissions — increases the risk of accidental or intentional misuse of assets.

To minimize the risk, SOC 2-compliant MAM solutions enforce role-based access control (RBAC), ensuring that users have access only to the files and tools they need, and conducting periodic user permission audits to identify and fix excessive access rights.

Iconik’s commitment to security and innovation

Backlight is excited to announce that iconik, our cloud-based collaboration and media management hub, has achieved SOC 2 Type I compliance, marking a step forward in our continued commitment to data security standards. 

“Achieving SOC 2 compliance is a testament to our ongoing commitment to providing a platform that our users can trust. As media workflows become more complex and globally distributed, we focus on ensuring that all data and media assets within iconik are protected.” — Mikael Wahlberg, Executive Vice President, Engineering, Backlight

If you have questions about SOC 2 compliance or you would like to learn how iconik prioritizes security while empowering creativity, request a demo today.