Hands-On Cybersecurity with Blockchain

Implement DDoS protection, PKI-based identity, 2FA, and DNS security using Blockchain

Rajneesh Gupta

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781788991858
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Cyber Security
• Index: Computer Science

Develop blockchain application with step-by-step instructions, working example and helpful recommendationsAbout This Book• Understanding the blockchain technology from the cybersecurity perspective• Developing cyber security solutions with Ethereum blockchain technology• Understanding real-world deployment of blockchain based applicationsWho This Book Is ForThe book is targeted towards security professionals, or any stakeholder dealing with cybersecurity who wants to understand the next-level of securing infrastructure using Blockchain. Basic understanding of Blockchain can be an added advantage.What You Will Learn• Understand the cyberthreat landscape• Learn about Ethereum and Hyperledger Blockchain• Program Blockchain solutions• Build Blockchain-based apps for 2FA, and DDoS protection• Develop Blockchain-based PKI solutions and apps for storing DNS entries• Challenges and the future of cybersecurity and BlockchainIn DetailBlockchain technology is being welcomed as one of the most revolutionary and impactful innovations of today. Blockchain technology was first identified in the world's most popular digital currency, Bitcoin, but has now changed the outlook of several organizations and empowered them to use it even for storage and transfer of value.This book will start by introducing you to the common cyberthreat landscape and common attacks such as malware, phishing, insider threats, and DDoS. The next set of chapters will help you to understand the workings of Blockchain technology, Ethereum and Hyperledger architecture and how they fit into the cybersecurity ecosystem. These chapters will also help you to write your first distributed application on Ethereum Blockchain and the Hyperledger Fabric framework. Later, you will learn about the security triad and its adaptation with Blockchain. The last set of chapters will take you through the core concepts of cybersecurity, such as DDoS protection, PKI-based identity, 2FA, and DNS security. You will learn how Blockchain plays a crucial role in transforming cybersecurity solutions.Toward the end of the book, you will also encounter some real-world deployment examples of Blockchain in security cases, and also understand the short-term challenges and future of cybersecurity with Blockchain.Style and approachThis book will follow a practical approach to help understand blockchain technology to transform cybersecurity solutions

Introducing Blockchain and Ethereum

Once in several years, we see the birth of revolutionary technologies with the capability to disrupt a wide range of business models. In this chapter, the blockchain will be introduced with an insight into the technology and its business use cases. Blockchain is a concept that originated to avoid third-party involvement in any financial transaction in a whitepaper named Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System, by Satoshi Nakamoto. We will also be discussing the types of blockchain-based business needs, cryptography, and consensus, which mitigate the risk of fraud.

You will learn about the following topics in this chapter:

• What blockchain is
• Internet versus blockchain
• How blockchain works
• The building blocks of blockchain
• Ethereum blockchain
• Private versus public blockchains
• Business adaptation

What is blockchain?

Just like every other day, you are enjoying your morning with a cup of coffee and news feeds. At the same time, somewhere, a financially motivated hacker is finding all of the possible ways to compromise millions of users' accounts for a widely used social networking site. The hacker is successful in gaining access to the database and exfiltrates a large amount of credentials.

After around 180 days, this massive credential theft is revealed publicly, and you find out that you are also one of the people who has been targeted. Just like you, millions of other users also have a good reason to be worried about their attached trust and privacy. The examples range from the latest Equifax 2017 Data Breach case (143 million credentials compromised) to the Adult Friend Finder 2016 case (413 million account thefts), the Anthem 2015 case (78 million accounts were hacked), and many more. None of the preventative solutions can be 100% secure, but finding out what the problem was at the right time could have saved the misuse of these accounts. What if a technology can do the following?:

• Detect who looks at a person's account and changes it
• Ensure that data concerning the person is not misused

This sounds like a smart thing to use, but it's not that difficult to implement. This is what a blockchain does. In a nutshell, it's nothing but a smart, safe, and constantly growing database. Blockchain is a chronological ledger that records transactions of any value or asset securely. The blockchain network provides the ability to transfer any type of value or asset between independent parties using a peer-to-peer network. The initial objective of the blockchain technology was to establish trusted financial transactions between two independent parties without any involvement of third-parties such as a bank; however, later, several industries adopted blockchain to streamline their supply chain process, KYC system, data management, and so on. With the growing use of online services and a growing number of online transactions, users have to trust and depend on third parties such as banks and payment gateway providers. This led to the birth of the blockchain.

A brief history

In 2009, a whitepaper called Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System was released by Satoshi Nakamoto to solve the existing financial market challenges. This whitepaper focused on developing a platform to allow online payments from one party to another without going through financial institutions. One of the major challenges addressed was about the double method, which is used to avoid double spending (a unique problem with digital currency is the risk of reproducing the same amount, even after spending it) of Bitcoin. As Bitcoin is digital money and it isn't difficult to copy digital data and announce it, double-spending occurred and a solution was proposed to prevent this; this was blockchain. However, Nakamoto's original paper does not mention the word blockchain; it first appeared as block chain in a Bitcoin source code comment.

Fundamentals of the blockchain

Blockchain is a decentralized database that keeps records of all transactions secure and in an append-only fashion. Blockchain rapidly became popular among numerous industries because of its decentralized nature regarding its database. For an organization that can't afford a single point of failure, the blockchain database makes it practically impossible for sensitive information to be compromised by cyber criminals. Also, blockchain isn't just managed by trusted administrators or developers; it is well-managed by anyone who can be either trusted or from a known or unknown party. The following diagram is a graphical representation of the blockchain network:

Each internet-connected computer needs to have blockchain node software and run an application specific to the blockchain ecosystem. Depending on the use cases, the participation of these computers can be restricted. For example, the blockchain-based ecosystem bankchain only permits banks to run the bankchain node client application.

Who is using blockchain and how?

In the current era of technology, other than any buzz technology, blockchain has the capability to enter any industry as a disrupter. This could be to reduce operational expenditure, overcome cybersecurity-related issues, deliver identity and access management solutions, facilitate collaboration between private and public institutions, achieve a better data management system, enhance and simplify logistic and supply chain management, allow a seamless insurance sales and management system, or deploy a better health record database system to protect people against any data theft or espionage attempt.

Internet versus blockchain

The internet is a more-than-30-year-old technology with the purpose of sharing information over TCP/IP and the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model stack. From the birth of the internet, every new technology had disrupted an existing one, whether it was email or the web, or even e-commerce. The internet is one of the strongest technologies and has been powerful enough to spread out ideas to impact and create illusions for reality.

TCP/IP was the first internet protocol suite built to standardize communication between similar networks; however, the OSI model was developed by the International Standard Organization (ISO) to provide a framework to standardize communication between systems, irrespective of vendors, models, and technologies. Organizations preferred both models for client/server communication because client/server networks tend to be much more reliable and stable in nat...