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In this article, Mrugakshee Palwe takes a deeper look into what Blockchain is, how it works, and why it’s required to make cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin possible. 

What are the properties of a Blockchain network?

Blockchains, in general, have three properties:

Internet vs. Blockchain

The invention of the internet is a common comparison to the way Blockchain and cryptocurrency is entering the mainstream. After the internet was established, anyone from around the world had access to information. The ability to publicise your voice became possible, followed by the ability to keep current with the times. The internet essentially decentralised information, creating somewhere we can easily trade, transfer, and share information.

What the internet did to information, Blockchain is doing to money. Various Blockchains are creating the internet of money, a global financial ecosystem that allows us to trade, transfer, and share value in a decentralised way. Just like pre-internet, we relied on centralised sources for our information. We currently rely on centralised entities dubbed as banks to provide our financial infrastructure. Blockchain is changing this paradigm at a staggering rate.

No Bitcoin without Blockchain

Bitcoin was invented on 31st October 2008 and launched on 3rd January 2009. The attempt to figure out how to securely link together transactions goes back as far as 1997 with foundations rooted in “HashCash”, a pre-Bitcoin phenomenon. Without the founders of Bitcoin figuring out how to create a tamper-proof chain of transactions, Bitcoin would not be possible.

So how does it all work?

The Bitcoin Blockchain is a series of individual blocks that contain transactions taking place on the network. Computers around the world maintain the same copy of each individual block. These computers form the Bitcoin Network and maintain the security and authenticity of the Blockchain.

The transactions that take place on the network are put into blocks and linked together cryptographically, and thus the Blockchain has been an obvious choice of words to describe the underlying technology to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Blockchain cuts out the middleman

In the original whitepaper where Satoshi Nakamoto introduced Bitcoin, he detailed a “peer-to-peer electronic cash system”. Peer-to-peer means that there is no need for a third party to authenticate transactions on the network.

Cash transactions are a peer-to-peer payment system. There is no third party required to facilitate the transaction between you and a merchant for a purchase or transfer when using cash. The property of cutting out the middleman in online transactions has the potential to disrupt many industries. For example, from making supply chains more efficient to making global financial transactions faster and cheaper.

The difference between Blockchain, cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency is an application of Blockchain. Just like the internet serves many applications (like websites), there is a wide range of cryptocurrencies, each with their own unique purpose serving as applications on their own Blockchain. Blockchain is the underlying infrastructure that makes cryptocurrency possible.

Another point worth noting is that not all Blockchains have an associated cryptocurrency. While cryptocurrency is the first application of Blockchain, industry professionals have found ways to apply the technology in a variety of ways that don’t require a cryptocurrency to be tied to the Blockchain.

The many uses of Blockchain

A new industry is emerging in the technical corners of the planet. In finance, Blockchain has many use cases including tokenisation, cross-border transactions, and censorship-resistant payments.

In other industries, Blockchain can be used to form agreements in business relationships to reduce disputes and ambiguity between partners. Smart contracts, which are self-executing coded contracts, have enabled new forms of digital agreements. This becomes very useful as it digitises the contract and automates its execution.

Applications that are built on top of Blockchains are called decentralised applications, or dApps for short. dApps are applications that exist on decentralised networks such as Ethereum. Ethereum can be thought of as an application or token platform, with the capability of hosting dApps. Your dApplication can leverage aspects of Blockchain such as the durability of decentralised networks, or the censorship resistance of cryptocurrency, simply by deploying your idea on top of an existing Blockchain. You don’t need to worry about the underlying computer infrastructure, as this is provided to you by willing participants all over the world.

Can Blockchain fail?

Blockchains are just software built by humans, and humans can make mistakes. That being said, the Bitcoin Blockchain has been active for more than a decade, without a single successful hack performed on the network. The developers of Bitcoin have decided to make trade-offs with the software, opting for more security and trust, instead of an efficient network that can process a global load of transactions.

Many hacks have taken place on Blockchain networks in the last decade. Hackers either exploit the code directly or gain control of the network through the governance mechanisms. For example, in order to hack the Bitcoin network through governance, you would need to control 51% of the network. This task has been deemed impossible, as the Bitcoin network is so widely distributed that it is nearly impossible to amass that much computational power. However, other Blockchain networks are smaller, and thus, much more vulnerable to a 51% attack.

The difference between public and private Blockchains?

Blockchains can be examined in a number of ways. One of those ways is by looking at who has access to the network. The Bitcoin network, for example, is completely open to anyone and everyone to use, without bias. The Bitcoin network applies no preferential treatment to you based on social status, or geographic location. It is for these reasons that Bitcoin is considered a public network.

A private network is more suited for use cases that require permission for accessing and utilising the network. A private network is better suited for enterprise purposes, such as supply chains, and closed financial systems.

The sophistication and level of security surrounding Blockchain and Bitcoin is remarkable, providing everyday people more power, control and convenience when it comes to managing their money.

What are the downsides of Blockchain technology

The downsides of Blockchain need to be talked about in the context of what that particular Blockchain is trying to solve. If the Blockchain is aiming to be a global payments system, that Blockchain needs to be primed to scale to meet demand, while maintaining security for its users. This is a hotly debated topic, but it all boils down to how Blockchains are implemented and governed.

If we look at Bitcoin, for example, the Blockchain uses more electricity than the country of Ireland in a single year to process no more than seven transactions per second. Contrast this to VISA, which processes 65k transactions per second, and Bitcoin doesn’t quite meet the standards. What’s worse is that adding more computers to the Bitcoin network doesn’t solve the scalability problem. As more computers are added to the network, the network gets stronger security but remains to process only seven transactions per second.

Since the inception of Bitcoin, developers have created new Blockchains that are more scalable but are arguably less secure than the security that the Bitcoin network provides.

Why Blockchain and Bitcoin are such a big deal

In today’s digital age, efficiency and privacy are more important than ever before. The sophistication and level of security surrounding Blockchain and Bitcoin is remarkable, providing everyday people more power, control and convenience when it comes to managing their money.  Whether digital money takes over our traditional paper money that is stored in physical banks is yet to be seen, but one thing is for certain: the complex world of Bitcoin and Blockchain is on the rise, with absolutely no signs of slowing down.

The Greek Debt Crisis was one of the more recent economic disasters that required three bailouts. While Greece is far from out of the woods, here's a brief history lesson on what happened.

You’ve seen a lot of content, articles, warning and advice on cybersecurity, with hundreds of firms trying to sell you next level cyber protection. So, before you do anything else, you need to know what exactly it is you’re protecting yourself against. Below Suid Adeyanju, Managing Director of RiverSafe, lists 10 threats you need to be aware of.

In early July IBM Security and the Ponemon Institute released a new report titled ‘Cost of a Data Breach Study’. In this study it was reported that that the global average cost of a data breach and the average cost for lost or stolen information both increased. The former is up 6.4% to £2.94 million while the latter increased by 4.8% year over year to $112.57. This shows that cyberattacks on enterprises continue to rise. In particular over the last two years there has been a continual stream of concerning data security breaches.

One of the ways that organisations can defend against attacks is to ensure staff understand and are educated about the cyber threat landscape.

Understanding Threats to your Business

Getting the right technology, services, and security professionals is only a part of tackling the cyber security problem. It is also important that companies get a clear understanding of the cyber threat landscape. This means knowing where these types of attacks can come from and in turn, who is leading the attack (whether it be an individual or group). Often, knowing the answer to these types of questions leads to an understanding of the motive and makes countering the attacks easier. So, in this article, I wanted to highlight the areas of the cyber threat landscape that enterprises should be aware of.

  1. Nation State: This kind of hacking is often government versus government. It is often functionally indistinguishable from cyber terrorism, but the defining trait is that the attack is officially sanctioned by a country’s government. These attacks can involve not only hacking but the use of more traditional spying as well.
  2. Insider Threat: This is one area where many businesses least expect a threat to come from: inside the business itself. A reportfrom A10 Networks revealed that employee negligence is a major cause of cyber attacks. Employees unknowingly allowing hackers into the business through unauthorised apps. And, on the very rare occasion, a disgruntled employee could try and bring the business down in revenge, so it is always important to investigate who could have access because there is every chance that the threat could come from the inside.
  3. Individual Attackers: When you think of the stereotypical hacker most thoughts turn to a hooded youth sitting alone in their room. This is the individual attacker and their motives are often more one of curiosity and learning. They want to see if they can hack a system rather than attempt anything malicious. This is the most neutral cyber threat.
  4. Industrial Espionage: Sometimes an unrelated group and other times a rival business, cyber threats that deal with industrial espionage have the motive of creating problems for your business. The most common reason for industrial espionage is to discover the secrets of a rival business, often through spying. However, it could also involve destroying valuable data or, with some IoT devices, physically breaking the technology. Anything that can push a business over a competitor.
  5. Cybercriminals: Much like the individual attackers, cybercriminals are an all-encompassing cyber threat. Almost all hackers are criminals in some way and the motives can vary from demanding money, to setting up crypto-mining, to damaging company property. Whatever they do it won’t be a good thing.
  6. Phishing and Ransomware: These are some of the most common types of attacks you’ll find cyber criminals performing. These attacks are motivated purely by financials and exist to either scam a business out of money or hold valuable company data at ransom. Sometimes this can be a distraction to hide something more nefarious. Therefore, organisations need to make sure they are prepared for any escalation.
  7. Ethical Hackers: An ethical hacker is the opposite of a cybercriminal, as the term ‘ethical’ implies. These types of threats are often undertaken for the sake of a company, and often have been paid for by the business to see if it can hack into its own servers. These hackers test the security resilience of a business and locate areas that are vulnerable, before an ‘unethical’ hacker comes along.
  8. Hacktivists: A hacktivist is a sub-set of cybercriminals whose motives are more ideological. As the name references, a hacktivist is essentially a cyber activist. They are using hacking purely to push an agenda, whether political, religious, or otherwise, rather than a financial motive. A hacktivist attack can be something as simple as changing the text on a company website to a more nefarious act that interferes with the day to day running of the business.
  9. Cyber Terrorism: While hacktivists don’t always cause damage, a cyber-terrorist will. Just like real terrorism, cyber terrorism exists to bring terror to your business, country and customers. Examples include the attacks on the NHSlast year which aimed to bring systems down in hospitals and cause chaos and fear.

By understanding all the different types of attacks in the cyber threat landscape it can help you build your cyber defence by identifying a motive and being able to trace what kind of opponent your business is facing, as well as if this is an attack aimed primarily at an individual, an organisation or a national-level threat where the solution would be to work with other companies to stop the attack as a team.

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