Digital security of all people is now more important than ever, as thousands of cyberattacks take place on the web daily.
There’s a huge increase in attacks compared to previous years, and they are likely to become more consistent in the future.
One of the ways to enhance our online security is to use blockchain-based digital products like bitcoin exchanges or other blockchain-based platforms.
Blockchain technology is not omnipotent, meaning it will not solve all our security problems overnight. However, if put to good use, this disruptive technology can help us enhance our protection.
There are many strategies of how blockchain can help us with this, and we’re going to discuss them in this article.
Moreover, we’ll mention some popular blockchain-based security solutions that tackle each of the security issues presented below.
Weakening DDoS Attacks
DDoS is a specific type of cyberattack that aims to crash your site by intentionally flooding it with visitors. This type of attack is common nowadays, and many sites use state-of-the-art protection methods to repel it.
However, that’s not possible, as there aren’t any effective ways to prevent a huge number of computer-generated visits from coming to your platform and crushing it.
Distributed Denial-of-Service attacks evolved lately, as many different types of malware can cause them. These attacks have become more severe and have a bigger impact given that we live in the Internet of Things era where our daily lives are strongly related to the network.
Blockchain can help with this. It cannot make DDoS attacks go away completely, but it can help weaken them by offering users to increase their network size while the attack is underway.
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That way, site owners will be able to keep their network functional up to a certain extent, and DDoS attackers will not be able to cause a crash.
One of the startups that focuses on this type of security is called Block Armour. The goal is to increase the network size and make DDoS attacks more difficult.
Blockchain Can Prevent Password Theft
When was the last time you changed your Facebook password? If you did it quite recently, did you make it more difficult or not? Finally, do you remember all of your passwords?
It’s true — millions of people do not take passwords seriously enough. That’s because you need to devote more time and energy to this protection to ensure that you’re safe and secure.
People don’t change their passwords as often as they should, and they definitely don’t make them as difficult as they should be. This paves the way for cyberattackers that can then penetrate this layer of protection with ease.
Blockchain works differently. There are no passwords in the blockchain world, as it mainly relies on multi-step authentication, private keys, and even biometric data.
This system is widely regarded as more useful and easier to use than entering your username and password to log in. A company that currently works on putting users’ digital identity into their hands so that they can further increase personal security on the web.
Cyberattacks Can Exploit DNS Security Flaws
Domain Name Service (simply referred to as DNS) is a system of naming our IP addresses. For example, your domain name might be example.com, but the real address is a set of numbers that were converted into a name, which is a more user-friendly solution.
Imagine having to type a long string of numbers every time you want to access a site. Sounds inconvenient, right?
However, DNS is not perfect, as hackers often find holes in security that are created between the site’s IP and its domain name.
For example, hackers hand engage in DNS poisoning, DNS amplification, and a plethora of other attacks that can seriously compromise your site.
Being decentralized by nature, blockchain can provide an alternative that is completely secure from exploiting DNS security flaws. One of the companies that currently acts as a “competitor” to DNS is ENS, which stands for Ethereum Name Service.
Decentralization Of Data
Almost all data in this world is stored in centralized systems. For example, Google uses a centralized database and stores many data points about its users and visitors. Many things are simply wrong with this way to store data.
First of all, if the system of the centralized service that contains your data is compromised, cyberattackers can find all your personal information that’s stored in the database.
If your data falls into the wrong hands, that could endanger you. Data leaks from centralized systems happened several times in the past, and the results were disastrous.
Even if the system is safe, secure, and impenetrable by cybercriminals, there’s another big issue: can you trust the centralized authority that stores your data? It all comes down to a couple of people who decide what to do with your personal information.
Although both Google and Facebook say that they don’t reveal information, they still profit from the traces you left by selling it to marketing companies.
Luckily, blockchain has the answer to this, and it is called data decentralization. Blockchain will not store all data in one place. Being decentralized by nature, it stores data all over the network. That way, there are no single-point entries for hackers. Moreover, there are no centralized authorities that decide what to do with your data.
One of the companies that focuses on this problem is called Fluree. It works on improving the concept of decentralized databases and enhancing their security.
Conclusion: This Is Just The Beginning
Blockchain is very new. It’s still being explored. That’s why some of the things mentioned in this article might be completely different in a couple of years. The good news is that this technology is being rapidly developed and that some of the brightest minds in this world are working on it, as it has a huge potential.
Make sure to follow the news — there’s something ground-breaking all the time that shows how blockchain can be used to improve the world we live in.
