Cyber-risks

Cyber-risks: 

According to Rothrock, Kaplan and Van Der Oord (2018), businesses across the global business platform have specifically faced different kinds of risks based on their likely business operations carried out on a daily basis to attain the initially set business objectives. One of the most significant risks identified to have been posed at different assets of the business organizations and relative operations are cyber-risks. These have been considered as one of the fastest-growing threats to the business, finance as well, as data is likely to have a specific motive of affecting the smooth ongoing of the business operations. These also tend to steal sensitive or confidential forms of business information relative to the daily business operations carried out across the premise of the respective business enterprise as well as personal information of clients associated with the business procedures on a daily basis.

As added by Peng et al. (2018), cyber risks might be explained or defined as a specific existence of an unlikely activity, which mainly tends to pose a definite threat upon the business assets as well as carry the primary intention of affecting the ongoing business operations, carried out on a daily basis. Basically, cyber risks also pose specific damage to the business organizations based on the information systems that are utilized by them to carry out the business operations on a daily basis (Padmanabhan and Zhang 2018). Cyber risks might be posed at the business organizations in multiple formats such as the likes of Cybercrime, corporate espionage, cyber terrorism as well as safety control for vendors. This might also tend to occur due to the internal existence of insider threats, third parties or leakage of information by the internal stakeholders of the respective business organization.

Cybersecurity: 

As highlighted by Rea-Guaman et al. (2020), cybersecurity is referred to as a specific practice of protecting systems, programs as well as networks meant to eliminate or protect such systems from any particular form of cyberattacks. This usually objectifies to access, change or destroying sensitive business information that also leads to extortion of money from the associated users or might tend to interrupt the normal occurrence of such business operations carried out at respective business organizations across the global business environment. Additionally, carrying out the effective implementation of cybersecurity measures also is a particular challenge in today’s world that poses a specific challenge towards the associated devices based on the attackers and their innovative techniques of posing such threats.

Cybersecurity

On the other hand, as stated by Al-Moshaigeh, Dickins and Higgs (2019), a successful approach for cybersecurity contains multiple layers of protection, which is specifically spread across different computers, programs, networks as well as data intending to keep safe. Within a respective business organization, the associated people, technologies as well as processes should complement each other to put forward an effective defence against various kinds of cyber-attacks. Additionally, a unified form of threat management system can also lead to an effective integration across the Cisco Security products as well as accelerate prime security functionalities such as the likes of investigation, detection as well as remediation.

Cybersecurity using blockchain: 

As discussed by Zhuang, Zamir and Liang (2020), cybersecurity refers to a specific practice of protecting systems as well as networks from any kind of digital attacks that successfully aim at accessing, changing or destroying digital forms of information either to extort money or might be as well to extract sensitive forms of information. However, the businesses having a heavy reliance upon the increasing aspects of technologies and data, significant importance of reinforcing security measures for protecting the associated digital data as well as transactions have become a necessity. Hence, blockchain technologies have been considered as a potential technology to increase the likely need for cybersecurity across the various aspects of business systems and networks for enhanced protection over sensitive information. Blockchain technologies have been identified to be beneficial against attacks such as viruses, trojan and rootkits along with Phishing, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) as well as Man in Middle Attacks (MiTM).

As added by Gimenez-Aguilar et al. (2021), blockchain refers to a shared, digital as well as decentralized ledger that specifically records transactions in the form of blocks. This ledger provides a helping hand in appropriately storing all kinds of information transparently due to the existing property of immutability as well as accessing for the allowed members only. One of the main aspects of blockchain is acting as a helping hand in appropriately meeting the likely demands of security over an IoT architecture. In respect to the increased usage of AI as well as IoT, the associated security over data as well as systems from various hackers has always been considered as a major concern. Utilization of blockchain for the likes of improved security by utilizing the device-to-device encryption for the likes of securing communication, authentication, as well as primary key management methodologies.

As put forward by Hasanova et al. (2019), blockchain technologies can also be efficiently utilized for verifying updates as well as installers to efficiently prevent malicious software from infecting devices. Here, the hashes are typically recorded within the existent blockchain as well as newer forms of software identities that can be efficiently compared to the hashers for carrying out an appropriate verification of download integrity. With the efficient utilization of encryption, the associated data present in the transit will be offered protection from any particular unauthorized access.

Cybersecurity using blockchain

According to Demirkan, Demirkan and McKee (2020), in respect to an exponential increase of data, which is generated at the business organizations on a daily basis due to the multiple business operations being carried out across the premise, also has the prime necessity of adequate protection against any kind of external unauthorized access. As a reason, blockchain-based solutions for storage provide a helping hand in achieving decentralized storage, which acts as a specific motive towards appropriate protection over the digital format of information possessed by the business organizations in particular.

Additionally, one of the most popular forms of cyber-threats that is posed at business systems in this current situation is Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks (Wang et al. 2019). In this attack, the primary objective of the hacker is to generate a specific flood of internet-based traffic as well as to disrupt the efficient flow of business services through the business systems regularly. As a reason, the associated properties of immutability, as well as cryptography, provide help to blockchain to effectively prove to become an efficient solution for such existing attacks.

As stated by Choo, Dehghantanha and Parizi (2020), DNS stands for Domain Name System (DNS) is specifically similar to a public directory that effectively links to the domain names aligned to specific IP addresses. Over time, the associated hackers have specifically tried to access the DNS and the existing exploit such existing links, hence, crashing sites. In respect to the blockchain properties of immutability as well as decentralized systems, the existing DNS can also be stored with enhanced forms of security in particular. Additionally, the following sections have also provided associated information related to the benefits of utilizing blockchain in terms of cybersecurity.

Benefits of Blockchain in cybersecurity: 

As discussed by Mylrea and Gourisetti (2018), the associated public-key cryptography within the existing blockchain network provides a helping hand in maintaining the associated confidentiality belonging to the users connected to the respective network. In addition to this, the referenced transactional history is efficiently maintained as well as can be traced at any specific time. The transactions are also digitally signed by the registered members belonging to the blockchain network, hence maintaining an efficient format of transparency. One of the most noticeable features offered by blockchain technologies is known as immutability, as well as appropriate recording of any specific changes occurring within the data that provides a helping hand in storing data in a secure manner. This ensures that this feature of blockchain mainly aims at increasing the security as well as safety over the contained data in particular.

Benefits of Blockchain in cybersecurity

As added by Demirkan, Demirkan and McKee (2020), the existing blockchain systems are effectively decentralized and contain a singular node failure that does not affect the associated network. Hence, this also exists during the DDoS attacks, where the configured systems are not specifically compromised due to the appropriate maintenance of a varying degree of ledger copies. This particular advantage is not efficiently possible for the Privatised blockchains in any manner. The Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) within the blockchain carries out efficient maintenance of authentication during the likely aspects of data transfer. Such smart existing contracts also provide a helping hand in carrying out an automated execution of agreements between both the parties belonging to the specific transfer.

As concluded by Gimenez-Aguilar et al. (2021), cybersecurity has been treated as a primary necessity when it comes to efficient usage of protective measures to protect sensitive business or client information from likely cyber-threats tending to affect the normal operation of the businesses. However, blockchain technology has been selected as the most effective measure to treat system vulnerabilities and increase protection efficiently.

References: 

Al-Moshaigeh, A., Dickins, D. and Higgs, J.L., 2019. Cybersecurity Risks and Controls: Is the AICPA’s SOC for Cybersecurity a Solution?. The CPA Journal, 89(6), pp.36-41.

Choo, K.K.R., Dehghantanha, A. and Parizi, R.M. eds., 2020. Blockchain cybersecurity, trust and privacy. Springer.

Demirkan, S., Demirkan, I. and McKee, A., 2020. Blockchain technology in the future of business cyber security and accounting. Journal of Management Analytics, 7(2), pp.189-208.

Gimenez-Aguilar, M., de Fuentes, J.M., Gonzalez-Manzano, L. and Arroyo, D., 2021. Achieving cybersecurity in blockchain-based systems: A survey. Future Generation Computer Systems, 124, pp.91-118.

Hasanova, H., Baek, U.J., Shin, M.G., Cho, K. and Kim, M.S., 2019. A survey on blockchain cybersecurity vulnerabilities and possible countermeasures. International Journal of Network Management, 29(2), p.e2060.

Mylrea, M. and Gourisetti, S.N.G., 2018, August. Blockchain for supply chain cybersecurity, optimization and compliance. In 2018 Resilience Week (RWS) (pp. 70-76). IEEE.

Padmanabhan, A. and Zhang, J., 2018. Cybersecurity risks and mitigation strategies in additive manufacturing. Progress in Additive Manufacturing, 3(1), pp.87-93.

Peng, C., Xu, M., Xu, S. and Hu, T., 2018. Modeling multivariate cybersecurity risks. Journal of Applied Statistics, 45(15), pp.2718-2740.

Rea-Guaman, A.M., Mejía, J., San Feliu, T. and Calvo-Manzano, J.A., 2020. AVARCIBER: a framework for assessing cybersecurity risks. Cluster Computing, 23(3), pp.1827-1843.

Rothrock, R.A., Kaplan, J. and Van Der Oord, F., 2018. The board’s role in managing cybersecurity risks. MIT Sloan Management Review, 59(2), pp.12-15.

Wang, B., Dabbaghjamanesh, M., Kavousi-Fard, A. and Mehraeen, S., 2019. Cybersecurity enhancement of power trading within the networked microgrids based on blockchain and directed acyclic graph approach. IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, 55(6), pp.7300-7309.

Zhuang, P., Zamir, T. and Liang, H., 2020. Blockchain for cybersecurity in smart grid: A comprehensive survey. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, 17(1), pp.3-19.