Using the blockchain to forestall knowledge breaches

Data breaches have, sadly, turn out to be an all-too-common actuality. The Varonis 2021 Data Risk Report signifies that almost all firms have poor cybersecurity practices and unprotected knowledge, making them weak to cyberattacks and knowledge loss.

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

Instead, it’s crucial to begin searching for extra superior safety options. As far as progressive options go, stopping knowledge breaches by using the blockchain could also be our greatest hope.

Blockchain expertise 101

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

This expertise makes it extraordinarily troublesome to vary or hack a system, because it permits for the information to be recorded and distributed however not copied. Since it gives a brand-new method to storing knowledge securely, it may be a promising resolution for knowledge breaches in any atmosphere with high-security necessities.

Built on the concept of P2P networks, a blockchain is a public, digital ledger of saved knowledge shared throughout an entire community of pc programs. Each block holds a number of transactions, and at any time when a brand new transaction occurs, a document of that transaction will get added to each community participant’s ledger.

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

Enhancing knowledge safety through encryption

World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee has stated lately that “we’ve lost control of our personal data.” Companies 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.

While this knowledge is sort of all the time encrypted, it’s by no means as safe as it could be in a blockchain. By making use of the most effective elements of cryptography, blockchain can lastly put an finish to knowledge breaches.

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

To safe saved knowledge, blockchain employs two several types of cryptographic algorithms: hash capabilities and asymmetric-key algorithms. This method, the information can solely be shared with the member’s consent, and so they can even specify how the recipient of their knowledge can use the information and the window of time during which the recipient is allowed to take action.

Hash capabilities

When the primary transaction of a sequence 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. Every 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.

Asymmetric encryption

Asymmetric encryption, also called public-key cryptography, encrypts plain textual content utilizing two keys: a personal key that’s usually produced through a random quantity algorithm, and a public one. The public key’s obtainable freely and could be transferred over unsecured channels.

On the opposite hand, the personal key’s stored a secret in order that solely the consumer can realize it. Without it, it’s nearly not possible to entry the information. It capabilities as a digital signature, like real-world signatures.

This method, 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 motive for the rise in knowledge breaches is over-reliance on centralized servers. Once customers and app customers enter their private knowledge, it’s immediately written into the corporate’s database, and the consumer doesn’t get a lot say in what occurs to it afterward.

Even if customers try to restrict the information the corporate can share with third events, there can be loopholes to use. As the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data-mining scandal confirmed, the outcomes of such centralization could be catastrophic. Additionally, even assuming goodwill, the corporate’s servers may nonetheless get hacked by cybercriminals.

In distinction, blockchains are decentralized, immutable information of information. This decentralization eliminates the necessity for one trusted, centralized authority to confirm knowledge integrity. Instead, it permits customers to share knowledge in a trustless atmosphere. Each member has entry to their very own knowledge, a system referred to as zero-knowledge storage.

This additionally makes the community much less more likely to fall sufferer to hackers. Unless they carry down the entire community concurrently, the undamaged nodes will shortly detect the intrusion.

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

Immutability

In addition to being decentralized, blockchains are additionally designed to be immutable, which will increase knowledge integrity. The blockchains’ immutability makes all the information saved therein nearly not possible to change.

Because 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 mechanically trigger it to be rejected by the remainder of the community members. Therefore, any alteration or change within the block knowledge will result in inconsistency and break the blockchain, rendering it invalid.

The backside line

Even although blockchain expertise has been round since 2009, it has a lot untapped potential within the area of cybersecurity, particularly on the subject of stopping knowledge breaches.

The top-notch cryptography employed by blockchain protocols ensures the security of all knowledge saved within the ledger, making it a promising resolution.

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 acquire entry to any personal knowledge.

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