Using the blockchain to prevent data breaches

Knowledge breaches have, sadly, change into an all-too-common actuality. The Varonis 2021 Knowledge Threat Report signifies that almost all companies have poor cybersecurity practices and unprotected knowledge, making them weak to cyberattacks and knowledge loss.

With a single knowledge breach costing an organization a median of $3.86 million and eroding a model’s repute and its customers’ belief, mitigating the dangers is now not a luxurious. Nonetheless, as cyberattacks get extra pervasive and complex, merely patching up conventional cybersecurity measures will not be sufficient to fend off future knowledge breaches.

As an alternative, it’s crucial to start out in search of extra superior safety options. So far as modern options go, stopping knowledge breaches by using the blockchain could also be our greatest hope.

Blockchain know-how 101

Blockchain know-how, additionally known as distributed ledger know-how (DLT), is the fruits of many years of analysis and development in cryptography and cybersecurity. The time period “blockchain” was first popularized because of cryptocurrency, because it’s the know-how behind record-keeping within the Bitcoin community. 

This know-how makes it extraordinarily tough to alter or hack a system, because it permits for the info to be recorded and distributed however not copied. Because it supplies a brand-new strategy to storing knowledge securely, it may be a promising answer for knowledge breaches in any setting with high-security necessities.

Constructed on the concept of P2P networks, a blockchain is a public, digital ledger of saved knowledge shared throughout a complete community of pc programs. Every block holds a number of transactions, and every time a brand new transaction occurs, a report of that transaction will get added to each community participant’s ledger.

Its strong encryption and decentralized and immutable nature could possibly be the reply to stopping knowledge breaches.

Enhancing knowledge safety through encryption

World Large Net inventor Tim Berners-Lee has stated lately that “we’ve misplaced management of our private knowledge.” Firms retailer huge quantities of personally identifiable data (PII), together with usernames, passwords, cost particulars, and even social safety numbers, because the Domino’s knowledge leak in India (amongst others) has made clear.

Whereas this knowledge is nearly all the time encrypted, it’s by no means as safe as it might be in a blockchain. By making use of the perfect features of cryptography, blockchain can lastly put an finish to knowledge breaches.

How can a shared ledger be safer than normal encryption strategies?

To safe saved knowledge, blockchain employs two various kinds of cryptographic algorithms: hash capabilities and asymmetric-key algorithms. This fashion, the info can solely be shared with the member’s consent, and so they may specify how the recipient of their knowledge can use the info and the window of time through which the recipient is allowed to take action.

Hash capabilities

When the primary transaction of a series happens, the blockchain’s code offers it a singular hash worth. As extra transactions happen, their hash values are then hashed and encoded right into a Merkle tree, thereby making a block. Each block will get a singular hash with the hash of the earlier block’s header and timestamp encoded.

This creates a hyperlink between the 2 blocks, which, in flip, turns into the primary hyperlink within the chain. Since this hyperlink is created utilizing distinctive data from every block, the 2 are immutably certain.

Uneven encryption

Uneven encryption, often known as public-key cryptography, encrypts plain textual content utilizing two keys: a non-public key that’s usually produced through a random quantity algorithm, and a public one. The general public secret’s obtainable freely and might be transferred over unsecured channels.

However, the non-public secret’s stored a secret in order that solely the consumer can understand it. With out it, it’s nearly inconceivable to entry the info. It capabilities as a digital signature, like real-world signatures.

This fashion, blockchain offers particular person customers the flexibility to handle their very own knowledge and specify with whom to share it over cryptographically encoded networks. 

Decentralization

A major cause for the rise in knowledge breaches is over-reliance on centralized servers. As soon as customers and app customers enter their private knowledge, it’s straight written into the corporate’s database, and the consumer doesn’t get a lot say in what occurs to it afterward.

Even when customers try to restrict the info the corporate can share with third events, there will likely be loopholes to take advantage of. Because the Fb–Cambridge Analytica data-mining scandal confirmed, the outcomes of such centralization might be catastrophic. Moreover, even assuming goodwill, the corporate’s servers might nonetheless get hacked by cybercriminals.

In distinction, blockchains are decentralized, immutable data of information. This decentralization eliminates the necessity for one trusted, centralized authority to confirm knowledge integrity. As an alternative, it permits customers to share knowledge in a trustless setting. Every member has entry to their very own knowledge, a system often called zero-knowledge storage.

This additionally makes the community much less more likely to fall sufferer to hackers. Until they bring about down the entire community concurrently, the undamaged nodes will rapidly detect the intrusion.

Since decentralization reduces factors of weak point, blockchains even have a a lot decrease likelihood of succumbing to an IP-based DDoS assault than centralized programs utilizing consumer/server architectures.

Immutability

Along with being decentralized, blockchains are additionally designed to be immutable, which will increase knowledge integrity. The blockchains’ immutability makes all the info saved therein nearly inconceivable to change.

As a result of each particular person within the community has entry to a replica of the distributed ledger, any corruption that happens in a member’s ledger will robotically trigger it to be rejected by the remainder of the community members. Due to this fact, any alteration or change within the block knowledge will result in inconsistency and break the blockchain, rendering it invalid.

The underside line

Although blockchain know-how has been round since 2009, it has a lot untapped potential within the subject of cybersecurity, particularly in terms of stopping knowledge breaches.

The highest-notch cryptography employed by blockchain protocols ensures the protection of all knowledge saved within the ledger, making it a promising answer.

Since nodes operating the blockchain should all the time confirm any transaction’s validity earlier than it’s executed, cybercriminals are nearly assured to be stopped of their tracks earlier than they achieve entry to any non-public knowledge.

Jenelle Fulton-Brown is a safety architect and web privateness advocate primarily based in Toronto, Canada serving to Fortune 500 corporations construct future-proof inside programs.