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With digitalization has come a huge wave of digital transformation initiatives. As more and more people embrace digital operations, there is more data for organizations to manage, organize and store.
With that said data security remains a concern for many companies. Statista reports that in the first half of 2022 alone, there were 5.5 billion malware attacks. This calls for a robust cybersecurity infrastructure that can maintain the integrity of organizational and user data while keeping hackers and breaches at bay.
This is precisely what cybersecurity blockchain projects help you achieve – strong data security for your enterprise data. Let's understand everything there is to know about data privacy and security in blockchain.
Blockchain can be considered as a distributed database housed over a computer network's nodes. This decentralized ledger system is what gives it extra security with respect to transactions and data storage.
Blockchain technology has been leveraged effectively for cryptocurrency and its transactions because of its enhanced security features. Because of the decentralized ledger system, blockchains offer a secure way to store transaction data, making it highly traceable yet immutable.
Every transaction or data entry on a blockchain creates a block attached to the decentralized chain. This happens chronologically and requires keys and permissions from every party involved to be accessed. This is what makes blockchains a secure technology for cybersecurity. The overall spending on blockchain-based solutions in 2021 was almost $6.6 billion.
In the realm of cybersecurity, blockchain brings immense possibilities to the table. In essence, the "CIA" model helps to determine the security landscape of an organization using blockchains:
Until now, there haven't been any major blockchain security vulnerabilities that can potentially threaten an organization's security when the solutions are robustly designed.
Blockchains help enhance the Confidentiality aspect of the data at your organization. Using blockchain technology, you can set up proper encryptions and keys that allow only authorized and verified access to information stored in blockchain vaults.
Blockchains enable activating the access controls right at the application level, which helps to prevent attacks that from inside the network. The public key infrastructure of blockchains authenticates the accessing user over the decentralized network and establishes traceable records.
Blockchains provide an activity log that is 100% traceable. With each new iteration or activity, the system's previous state is stored in logs, which helps maintain the integrity of the entire decentralized system.
Smart contracts eliminate third-party authentication by automating executions, enforcing rules, and verifying – this is a huge help in preventing data miners from mining data in blocks.
In light of the ever-increasing DDoS attacks (Distributed Denial of Service attacks), organizations need a countermeasure that neutralizes them. DDoS attacks target a network by flooding it with a high volume of malicious traffic to make it inoperable due to overload. It then creates an opening for a breach.
However, blockchains have no single point of failure since the entire network is decentralized. This equips organizations with high network availability, preventing DDoS and many other forms of cyberattacks completely.
The benefits of blockchains for organizational security are many; however, there are four key ways that an enterprise can capitalize on blockchain technology for cybersecurity:
Blockchains provide public key encryption and cryptography that preserve the confidentiality of user identity and data. In essence, it provides access to only those parties with the right set of keys and permissions to view or modify the information contained in the blocks, which is highly secure.
Each activity on a blockchain automatically creates an access record using the protocols in smart contracts. Each record has a timestamp and a complete history of preceding transactions.
This makes the entire operation thoroughly transparent and easily traceable. The digital signatures make it convenient to trace access, enhancing transparency.
The biggest benefit of blockchains is how data is stored in them. The immutability of records ensures that the information stored in blocks is accessible only to authorized individuals.
Any changes made need authentication from all the co-users and will leave a record on the chain. This improves data security.
Blockchains follow a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) that automatically maintains and confirms user authentication for data transfers. With the use of smart contracts, automated execution of agreements also takes place, which facilitates safe data transfers between the parties involved.
There are six key ways in which cybersecurity blockchain projects make the data at your organization safer and more secure.
When your organizational data is stored across a network of nodes, it is harder to hack or breach security. When compared to data stored at a centralized location, this is safer.
Blockchains provide end-to-end data encryption, ensuring that the information is encrypted where it originates and only decipherable by the recipient with the right access credentials.
Blockchains significantly reduce the risk of human errors and fraud using smart contracts. This is programmed with conditions for self-execution, removing intermediaries from the picture completely.
Since blockchains store records for all the activities over the decentralized network, this technology can be effectively leveraged for conducting transaction audits at your organization efficiently.
Countless internal cyberattacks bank on identity thefts. Organizations can use blockchain technology to establish unique identifiers for each user over the decentralized network. This will prevent identity theft and maintain sovereignty over data.
Blockchains function over an immutable, distributed ledger that cannot be altered, modified, or deleted. This proves to be instrumental in deterring cyberattacks. The decentralized nature of information storage also helps to prevent single-point failures.
Blockchain doesn't just provide cybersecurity for organizations. This technology can also be used effectively for several other types of security use cases.
Below are five major use cases in which blockchain technology assists enterprises.
IoT (Internet of Things) and AI (Artificial Intelligence) together can transform how an organization interacts with technology. However, that creates several data points that can be bolstered for enhanced security.
Blockchains can be leveraged to enhance security through device-to-device encryptions across all the IoT devices your organization uses.
One of the major ways that malware and malicious software enters an organization's networks is through update downloads.
Blockchain technology is an excellent way to ensure that all the downloads are verified safely before they can impact the company's systems and networks. It is an excellent filter for phishing and malware/spyware attacks.
Blockchains scramble the transmitted data without using any mathematical rules. The encryption is randomized, ensuring that the data remains scrambled even if it is intercepted midway.
It helps prevent data theft during transmissions by enabling PKI security and automatic user verification to allow anyone access to the data.
DDoS attacks work by overloading a network with malicious or bot traffic to confuse and disorient its operations, which creates an opening for a breach.
Since blockchains are decentralized, there is no single point where a DDoS attacker can overload the network or initiate such an attack.
There have been many instances where hackers have tried to access the DNS records to exploit the links and crash a website.
To reinforce your enterprise against such attacks, blockchain technology can be leveraged for its immutability to preserve DNS integrity and improved security.
Although blockchains provide an excellent way to enhance the security and privacy of data, there are several drawbacks that you need to prepare for:
Even though blockchains aren't as main scale as other technologies yet, they have proven their potential by providing uncompromised security for cryptocurrency operations.
Especially for the Finance industry, which is already highly vulnerable to cyberattacks, blockchain-based security can turn the tables. In the year 2022, this industry experienced 23.6% of all phishing attacks that occurred in the first quarter.
Organizations can effectively tap into privacy and security in blockchains with the help of seasoned experts who are well-versed in providing decentralization solutions for data security. Innovation is the root of improvement, and with innovative blockchain technologies for cybersecurity, your enterprise can truly secure its data against modern cyberattacks.
