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A few months ago in a post on how blockchain is changing business, we discussed how a vast majority of executives now believe there are compelling business cases for blockchain. As we enter deeper into the ‘20s, businesses will continue to discover blockchain is critical to their strategic initiatives. Our experience shows us the number one practical application for blockchain in enterprises is cybersecurity.
Many businesses use legacy cybersecurity solutions ill-equipped to tackle a distributed network architecture. As a result, applications and associated data are exposed to single points of failure. Ransomware attacks last year totaled nearly $8B USD and impacted companies across industries. This year we saw how crippling ransomware attacks can be to our supply chains for food and fuel. In short, old IT environments and traditional cybersecurity measures aren’t doing enough to protect businesses because the old systems aren’t people-friendly and people represent the vulnerability that often leads to attacks.
Blockchain-based solutions for enterprise cybersecurity offer better protection for businesses with distributed data infrastructure. Blockchain cybersecurity solutions store data and digital assets in a distributed and secure fashion, with encryption capabilities that better protect against disruption, ransomware, and phishing attacks. There are examples of companies and organizations applying blockchain for just this purpose from Maersk to NASA.
All that said, few businesses — especially those with narrow margins or conservative budgets — have the risk appetite to absorb new solutions into their enterprise security cloud systems if it means ripping out legacy infrastructure whole-hog. So how can you get all the benefits from deploying blockchain in your cloud with as little disruption as possible? We think the best approach is to tackle a particular area of data security and expand from there. Here are a few ideas.
Secure your Internet of Things
Businesses, particularly manufacturing companies deploying what’s becoming known as Industry 4.0, find themselves increasingly exposed to hackers through edge devices. Smart devices such as factory thermostats or even routers in an auxiliary building allow blackhats to gain access to entire company systems. In 2014, for example, hackers broke into Target’s systems through an HVAC vendor with inappropriate system access (this is also a great example for identity management for vendors). By decentralizing device authorities into a blockchain, business can ensure attacks are impossible to execute by quarantining them away from central systems.
Stopping Ransomware Attacks
Ransomware attacks often target high value individuals such as CEOs and CFOs. The identity theft of a strategic target can lead to whole systems getting held hostage. Yesterday’s approach to cybersecurity won’t cut it: it relies too heavily on training and passwords. Furthermore, cybersecurity best practices traditionally rely on cyber hygiene but few businesses have the clarity to know whether the practices actually happen effectively — until a failure occurs. Using a public protocol index layer on a platform tied to Bitcoin can help stop ransomware attacks quickly.
Mitigating DDoS Attacks
Denial of service attacks take control of computers and concentrate compromised machines on a centrally located, vulnerable application. Distributed Denial of Service attacks are on the rise and generate an enormous amount of frustration and public embarrassment. Think of the attacks on Google in 2017, AWS in 2020, or GitHub in 2018. In addition to the frustration DDoS causes customers and users of digital services, they are wonderful distractions for other more costly criminal behavior. Deploying public protocol and blockchain to distribute applications and data can protect systems from takedowns of these kinds.
Replacing Passwords
Passwords are complex, hard to remember, and — as a consequence — many people use the same passwords or password-management tools for both personal and business devices. This is the definition of a single point of failure. Two-factor authentication is frustrating and slow. Using trustless protocols allows your business to skip passwords entirely and using private keys and multistep or biometric authentication to ensure user identity. Blockchain is naturally cryptographic and can better incorporate biometric authentication than other cybersecurity solutions. This is probably one of the easiest applications to start plugging blockchain into your enterprise security infrastructure. .
Learn more about how we can help
HeraSoft’s next generation software offers a variety of products and services to improve enterprise logistics management and cybersecurity.
- HeraVault™ offers distributed cloud storage with built-in replication, error correction and restoration capabilities.
- HeraFlow™, is an AI-Powered threat analysis system for fast and accurate threat data monitoring perfect for high-volume workloads and enterprise-level SOC’s.
- HeraPass™, with inherently fraud proof design, helps businesses innovate user management in IoT environments by achieving the anonymization and encryption of highly-sensitive data.
- HeraStamp™ proof-stamps mission critical data to permanent data stores and can help with data integrity in, for example, ecommerce settings.
