What is Blockchain in Cyber Security?

26-May-2022

Blockchain has surfaced with utmost importance and gained wide attention in recent years. Data is generated daily at an overwhelming rate. Hackers are creating new tactics and deploying sounder technology to carry out crimes while we continue to build advanced solutions to assure security. This has given rise to the rise in cybercrime statistics in staggering numbers. Blockchain technology is a good option for cybersecurity because of its inherent decentralized nature. Blockchain technology has many uses, from medical and financial data transmission to anti-money laundering monitoring and encrypted communication platforms.

Blockchain in Cybersecurity: An advanced weapon against cyber threat

To understand blockchain in cyber security let us discuss in detail what is blockchain and the roles of blockchain in cyber security.

Cyber security is the activity of defending systems and networks against digital attacks aimed at gaining access to, altering, or destroying digital information to extort money or sensitive information. As people become more reliant on technology and data, it's more critical than ever to strengthen security measures to secure digital data and transactions. 

What is Blockchain?

Blockchain is a distributed, decentralized digital ledger that keeps records as blocks. Because of its immutability and limited access, this ledger aids in the storage of information transparently.

Blockchain has the following features:

• Distributed shared ledger.

• Immutable records.

• Decentralized consensus mechanisms.

• Smart contracts.

• Cryptographic key pair.

• Identity and access management.

• Enhanced security.

• Peer to peer network.

• Transactions Traceability and transparency 

• No requirement for a central authority or third-party engagement.

Uses of Blockchain in Cyber Security

The CIA triad model in cybersecurity serves as a benchmark for evaluating an organization's security model. The application of blockchain in cybersecurity ensures all of these policies are effectively followed and implemented. 

Confidentiality: This refers to ensuring that only those who are interested and authorized have access to the information. While passing across untrusted networks, blockchain data is fully encrypted, ensuring that it is not accessible by unauthorized parties. To avoid attacks from within the network, security measures such as access controls should be applied directly at the application level. Blockchain can provide significant security measures by using public key infrastructure to authenticate users and encrypt their communication.

Integrity: The immutability and traceability embedded into blockchains help enterprises assure data integrity. In the event of a 51 percent cyber control attack, consensus model protocols can also assist companies in implementing procedures to prevent and control ledger splitting. With each successive iteration of Blockchain, the past state of the system is saved, resulting in a fully traceable history log. Smart contracts can be used to verify and enforce norms between parties, making it impossible for miners to mine data blocks.

Availability: Cyberattacks intended to disrupt the availability of technology services have increased in recent years, with DDoS attacks being the most common. DDoS assaults against blockchain-based systems, on the other hand, are expensive since the attacker tries to overwhelm the network with a large number of little transactions. Because blockchains have no single point of failure, IP-based DDoS attacks are less likely to affect routine operations. Data is accessible at all times via multiple nodes, allowing entire copies of the ledger to be accessed at all times. Platforms and systems are more resilient when numerous nodes and distributed operations are combined.

Highlighting the role of Blockchain in Cyber Security

Let us summarize the role of blockchain in cyber security in the following points:

• Blockchain strengthens the flow of data that we generate on social media platforms. We utilize an increasing number of social media platforms, and the majority of them are protected by weak and unreliable passwords. Large volumes of metadata are captured during social media interactions, and if hackers gain access to this information, they can create havoc. 

• Because blockchain technology is a more secure alternative to end-to-end encryption, it can be utilized to create a uniform security protocol. It can also be used to protect private messaging by providing a unified API architecture that allows for cross-messenger communication.

• Hackers have previously gained access to overall systems through edge devices. With the present popularity of home automation systems, hackers can get access to smart homes via edge devices such as smart switches if these IoT devices have weak security measures.

• By decentralizing their administration, blockchain technology can be utilized to secure such networks or individual devices.

• Blockchain technology can help reduce Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks by decentralizing Domain Name System (DNS) entries.

• Storing data in a centralized manner raises the risk of exploitation by hackers at every single vulnerable point and given the increasing amount of data generation on daily basis, the risk gets higher.  However, It will be practically hard for criminals to access data storage systems if data is stored in a decentralized form using blockchain.

• Blockchain technology can be utilized to verify Installer, Patches, and firmware updates.  

• By employing encryption, blockchain technology can safeguard data from unauthorized access while in transit.

Blockchain technology's inherent decentralized characteristic has various applications, one of which is cybersecurity. Data on blockchains can't be altered since network nodes automatically cross-reference each other and identify the node with erroneous data.

Blockchain technology offers the optimum level of transparency and integrity which is key to cyber security. Since blockchain technology automates data storage, the major source of data breaches — human mistakes – is eliminated. Cybercrime is the most serious threat to businesses, and blockchain in cyber security could help combat it.

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