[BreachExchange] The Role of Blockchain in Data Security

[Destry Winant]

https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/opinions/role-blockchain-data-security/

The rapid advances in digital technology over the past several decades
have also brought to the fore new challenges around data privacy and
security. As a result, hacks, identity theft and other digital
violations of privacy are becoming commonplace.

These issues have been thrown into sharp focus courtesy of the recent
Cambridge Analytica controversy and the European Union’s General Data
Protection Regulation (GDPR). Addressing the challenge of how to
secure the internet has been a primary motivation for many of us in
the Blockchain community for a much longer time, however. As
Blockchain technology re-architects our digital infrastructure, it
also reformulates the security equation.

A simple take on Blockchain is that it can be applied to any activity
that requires a database, and it follows that Blockchain software
brings to bear tools that tackle data management issues, particularly
around security, privacy and authentication.

One of distributed ledger technology’s most fundamental attributes is
that it makes data immutable. Once a log is made of an action or
transaction, it cannot be altered or falsified. This offers a whole
new level of transparency, and consequently security.

Furthermore, network administrators never have access to users’
passwords, meaning there is no gateway for them to control or
manipulate users’ data. Instead, thanks to use of private key
authentication, they receive only a snapshot of the identities of
individual users.

A matter of access
Newer Blockchain platforms have taken this principle one step further
by providing extremely robust systems of permissions to allow
different degrees of access to the network. These permissions are
customizable and can be governed by atomic actions, which are
indivisible sequences of primitive operations that must be enacted
without interruption.

On applications built on EOSIO, Blockchain software protocol developed
by Block.one, participants have different degrees of access. In
logistics management, for example, one type of key could allow access
only for data entry, another for monitoring data entry, and a third
for administering transfers of tokens between accounts. This keeps
different activities, and access to data, segmented.

This stratified system of permissions, which didn’t exist in older
public Blockchain platforms, offers enterprises a way of regulating
who can do what and thereby minimizing security wormholes for hackers
to exploit.

Turning users into stakeholders
At a time when internet users want more control over the data they
provide (and which they generate as they go about their digital
lives), the ability of Blockchain to stop third parties from accessing
data for marketing and advertising purposes is an attractive
proposition for many people.

Blockchain enables new models where users become participants. When
you transmit data, or transact in such an ecosystem, you are rewarded
with tokens. With a stake in the game, your role becomes active rather
than passive. We are already seeing token-based applications where
users play the part of activist stakeholders.

This can have a huge impact on the management, production and delivery
of goods and services, and on how organizations handle data from
everyone who interacts with their network.

Meeting the security challenge
In-keeping with its goal of achieving mass adoption of Blockchain
technology, Block.one has been fully engaged in exploring how
Blockchain can improve the relationship between technology and users’
privacy and security.

At the company’s recent EOS Global Hackathon series event in London,
participants were asked to consider the ways in which the technology
can put data back in the hands of users and come up with solutions
that deliver on this promise.

Winning projects included a device that prevents smart contracts from
interacting with blacklisted actors, a “smart” bank account, an app
that simplifies credit-checking by taking it out of the hands of
third-party providers, and another that incentivizes individuals to
donate genomics data in a secure, anonymized way.

As these ideas illustrate, a world bolstered by Blockchain technology
heralds a re-engineered digital landscape in which security and
transparency are integral. In the short to medium term, leaks,
cyber-attacks and mismanagement of data are likely to intensify,
making it all the more urgent that privacy and security issues are
addressed.