A hard cover product with a pair of cover boards attached to an outer liner in spaced-relation to define a spine, with a thin-film security device positioned on a laydown area of one of the cover boards, and on inner liner. In one aspect, the one cover board is a laminate of a pair of opposing sheets for sandwiching the thin-film security device without a surface indication of the presence of the thin-film security device therein. In another aspect, the thin-film security device attached to a surface of the cover board is concealingly covered by the inner or the outer liner