Sponsored: Blockchain Technology in The Cybersecurity Realm

Experts and ordinary people alike are now more informed about cybersecurity issues more than ever. This is because of the recent spike in major threats. Each year, there are several large-scale cybersecurity attacks that dominate the news. Hackers have become more skilled and they are putting their efforts into doing major damage. While hackers have access to more technology, so do those who protect the web. There are more tools available to tackle hacking attacks today than ever before. One of those tools is blockchain. The blockchain market is expected to be worth over $20 billion dollars by 2024. Let us look at the blockchain technology and its use in the cybersecurity realm.

The Basics About Blockchain

The blockchain technology is one that is now known mostly for its applications in the fintech world. This technology has been around for over a decade and it has revolutionized the online payments market. Blockchain is the infrastructure that gives cryptocurrencies a platform to operate. It is a store for records and other kinds of information about people and entities using cryptocurrencies. Today though, the technology is being applied in other areas outside the fintech world. Because of the large decentralized network that comes with blockchain, its use has been touted to be instrumental for a safer web.

How Blockchains Work

The blockchain is fundamentally a record-keeping platform. A data block is formed when a new piece of information is added to the chain. The information itself is a computer algorithm which contains information about a transaction or some other form of completed action. Usually, the computers that do the job of adding information are powerful. They do the task by solving a complex problem. Updates on the data are done through a consensus. This is because as a decentralized platform, any new changes made must be approved by all members on the blockchain. This is what makes the technology incorruptible.

Application of the Decentralized Platform to Secure Data

The blockchain is quite a formidable security tool. There are thousands of users on the blockchain and they all have a say in the way data is managed. Record-keeping and updates are done after every member on the chain have approved the changes. When a hacker gets onto the platform, they can only manage to change one piece of data. When the system scans the blockchain and finds the edited piece of data, it removes it from the blockchain because it differs from the pieces of data stored by all other members on the platform. This is why fraud prevention is easy with the blockchain.

The Strength of Blockchain Against Modern Attacks

The world today is defined by many kinds of threats. The most common cybersecurity problems can be solved by having some privacy and security tools in place. Doing some VPN reviews can, for instance, help you locate a good tool to secure your local data. But for the bigger organizations, it is simply not possible to completely keep malicious actors out of the machines. The blockchain technology provides strong security against common problems like DDoS attacks.

Using the Blockchain to Fight DDoS Attacks

There is no other kind of attack that is dangerous to business entities as the threat of DDoS attacks. DDoS attacks have been estimated to cost businesses an average of $2.5 million every time they occur. These attacks usually target the bigger companies that rely a lot on the web. A DDoS attack is done by hackers who send a huge number of requests on the servers of a particular company until they crash. This results in the outage of services for a period of time. Such attacks are done for many different motives but mostly, they are done to either damage the reputation of a company or to cause losses. DDoS attacks are possible because of the nature of the Domain Name System (DNS). The DNS is not fully decentralized and this means that anyone can target it and cause a website to crash. The blockchain is fully decentralized and the chances of attackers targeting it are nil.

Summary

There are many innovative uses that exist for the blockchain technology. This technology is in its early stages but it has proven to be very strong. It is fast, decentralized and rigorous when it comes to keeping records. With a little more investment in the infrastructure, it might result in the prevention of most cases of hacking and cybersecurity issues. The technology has to be implemented first across the world though.