Which protocol is designed to protect the media stream in real-time communications?

Which protocol is designed to protect the media stream in real-time communications?

• A. TLS
• B. SRTP
• C. DTLS
• D. SSL

Answer: (B)

Protecting the actual media carried by real-time streams requires a protocol that adds encryption, authentication, and anti-replay protections directly to the RTP payload. This is exactly what SRTP provides: a secure extension of RTP that encrypts the media, ensures its integrity, and defends against replay attacks, all with low latency suitable for live communications. TLS and SSL are general security layers for protecting sessions and signaling channels (such as web traffic or SIP signaling) rather than the media path itself. DTLS can secure datagram traffic, but the media stream in real-time communications relies on SRTP specifically to safeguard the RTP payload.

Protecting the actual media carried by real-time streams requires a protocol that adds encryption, authentication, and anti-replay protections directly to the RTP payload. This is exactly what SRTP provides: a secure extension of RTP that encrypts the media, ensures its integrity, and defends against replay attacks, all with low latency suitable for live communications.

TLS and SSL are general security layers for protecting sessions and signaling channels (such as web traffic or SIP signaling) rather than the media path itself. DTLS can secure datagram traffic, but the media stream in real-time communications relies on SRTP specifically to safeguard the RTP payload.