Leading German entertainment player prevents downtime in always-on media industry

ProSiebenSat.1 Media

ProSiebenSat.1 Media is the leading German entertainment player with a strong e-commerce business. Every day, 45 million TV households in Germany, Austria and Switzerland enjoy its 14 free and pay TV channels. Its online offers generate 1 billion video views per month. Every year, the company invests more than €1 billion in 120,000 hours of programming.

Protecting an increasingly complex broadcast environment
New, digital competition has changed the way viewers consume content. We tend to watch content when and where we want, rather than linear. The phenomenon of ‘second-screening’, with viewers watching TV alongside a smartphone or tablet, is now commonplace. Viewers may also have contracts with multiple providers and many will pay for specific content.

As a consequence, broadcasters are now in a continuous state of service delivery: They must constantly engage with viewers across multiple platforms and offer entertainment across any device.

“The business has changed significantly, not just in terms of how we process content,” says Andreas Mang, Senior Network and Firewall Manager at ProSiebenSat.1. “We live in an age of digital transformation and this development demands us to change.”

ProSiebenSat.1 brought its security management in-house seven years ago. The objective was primarily to protect media files and customer data when moving between sites. The business also wanted greater responsiveness around security and to build its corporate knowledge of security threats and solutions. “We saw many attack vectors,” says Mang, “from spearfishing to protocol exploitation.”

Check Point was central to moving everything in-house, with Check Point 44000 Next Generation Firewalls and SmartEvent providing full threat visibility.

“The challenge now is scale and network segmentation” says Mang. “We have really high bandwidth requirements on the internal networks, say 20GB per second. We need to accommodate this scale, but also future-proof any investment. We want to have headroom up to 50GB per second.”

The scale to accommodate long-term growth
The Check Point 44000 Next Generation Firewalls is a scalable solution which is designed to excel in large data center, media and telco environments. The multi-bladed, chassis-based security systems scale to support the needs of growing ProSiebenSat.1’s networks, while offering reliability and performance.

The Next Generation Firewall also gives Mang and his team better control over the IT environment, allowing them to identify new applications and either allow, block or limit their use; and making the implementation of new policies simpler and more consistent.

“It’s a big deal for us,” says Mang. “It is an investment we will benefit from for many years.”

The 44000 Next Generation Firewalls provide high port density, with 10, 40 and 100 GbE fiber ports. In addition, full redundancy (N+N) prevents down-time, there is advanced protection against known and unknown threats, and the solution is designed for ease of management and fast deployment – ideal for ProSiebenSat.1’s fast-moving, downtime-intolerant environment.

ProSiebenSat.1 also uses the SmartEvent event management solution to provide a single view of all security risks, allowing the IT team to respond immediately to security incidents.

“We use SmartEvent for troubleshooting mostly,” explains Mang. “It’s one of the best products on the market, providing metrics and analysis on a daily basis, without being over complicated to use.”

Scale and performance to ensure broadcast continuity
The upgrade is essential as ProSiebenSat.1 has to protect its customers and ensure continuity of service.

“People want to watch content whenever and wherever they want, on any device,” says Mang. “Check Point enables us to segment our network into different layers, preventing any penetration in one segment from spreading to another.”

The 44000 Next Generation Firewalls combined with SmartEvent provide unparalleled control and insight. SmartEvent provides full threat visibility with a single view into security risks. This allows Mang to take control and command the security event through real-time forensic and event investigation, compliance and reporting.

“SmartEvent is intuitive and gives a lot of reporting options. Plus, it is being continuously developed,” says Mang. “Each new version comes with new features and templates that make my job easier.”

“We’re happy with the return on investment of the Check Point product, the usability and stability,” explains Mang.