This paper studies secure layered video transmission in a multiuser multiple-input single-output (MISO) beamforming downlink communication system. The power allocation algorithm design is formulated as a non-convex optimization problem for minimizing the total transmit power while guaranteeing a minimum received signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) at the desired receiver. In particular, the proposed problem formulation takes into account the self-protecting architecture of layered transmission and artificial noise generation to prevent potential information eavesdropping. A semi-definite programming (SDP) relaxation based power allocation algorithm is proposed to obtain an upper bound solution. A sufficient condition for the global optimal solution is examined to reveal the tightness of the upper bound solution. Subsequently, two suboptimal power allocation schemes with low computational complexity are proposed for enabling secure layered video transmission. Simulation results demonstrate significant transmit power savings achieved by the proposed algorithms and layered transmission compared to the baseline schemes.