(Bloomberg) — The defence agency of the US that helped invent the internet now is betting on the blockchain, the database technology that underpins the digital currency bitcoin, to help her protect the networks that your research has made it possible.
The Agency of Advanced Research Projects of Defense (Darpa, its acronym in English), the research and development arm of the U.S. Army, has financed several startups and technology companies, such as Guardtime’s Federal, while other actors, including the MGT Capital Investments, of pioneer of the anti-virus John McAfee, are exploring or using the blockchain to identify and deter cyber attacks. A number of new products should reach the market in the coming months.
All of these companies are seeking to build on the basis of the strength of the blockchain, that resides in your ability to quickly verify the authenticity of the data entries and the identity of the people accessing it. With this, the technology fits naturally to the market of hardware, software and services, cyber security, according to the survey firm Cybersecurity Ventures.
“The banks will be the first to adopt and invest more heavily in the segment,” said Steve Morgan, founder and editor-in-chief of Cybersecurity Ventures. “We estimate that billions of dollars will flow into the market of the blockchain in the next five years. Other sectors will follow the example, to the extent that the banks legitimise the technology.”
The technology is able to protect the network of an organization by putting the identities of all the authorized users in the ledger of the blockchain, which continuously checks. In theory, an unauthorized user is detected instantly. A blockchain is also able to ensure continuously that all the bits of codes that are used to administer a network are authorised and are genuine and that the files have not been modified.
“There are whole categories of attacks that they would no longer be valid,” said Tim Booher, project manager at DARPA in Arlington, Virginia. “It would be like a warehouse in which the guards check all the files every second.”
Booher said that the blockchain possibly frustrate attacks such as the injection codes, which force a computer to run code of the hacker.
The Department of Homeland Security has awarded grants to start-ups as the Evernym to see if the blockchain can be used in the verification of the identity — information such as the date of birth and the citizenship of people submitted to tests in airports or the credentials of first responders.
The resource can be ready to be employed until the end of 2017, said Drummond Reed, managing director of the trust of Evernym. In September, the startup has donated part of its intellectual property to the Sovrin Foundation, which is developing a way for any person can verify your digital identity using the blockchain.
“This is the biggest improvement of the infrastructure of cyber security in 20 years,” said Reed.
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