Leveraging Blockchain for Cyber ​​Security – The SmartLedger Team Talks with the Food Institute Podcast

The SmartLedger team has been on a media blitz to start 2023, having already made several podcast appearances to showcase their new products and talk about the success of the Sentinel Node. This week they appeared on the Food Institute podcast to explain how blockchain can be leveraged for cybersecurity.

We present the podcast guests

Bryan Daugherty introduces himself as co-founder of SmartLedger and director of public policy for the Bitcoin Association.

Gregory Ward is Chief Development Officer at SmartLedger and co-founder of CertiHash.

Patryk Walaszczyk is a blockchain solutions expert and business analyst at IBM.

How are cyber security threats a growing threat to the food industry and business in general?

The host, Chris Campbell, asks this question right away. Daugherty replies that it is difficult to think of a more critical industry than agriculture. The food industry is complex and intertwined and will increasingly see the use of smart devices, the Internet of Things (IoT) and automated farming techniques. Any disruptions can have far-reaching effects throughout the industry, affecting real people’s lives and livelihoods, he says.

Furthermore, the food industry is fragile and dominated by a handful of conglomerates. Shutting down any of these via cyber attacks would have devastating consequences and would be a national concern for any country. Daugherty explains that there is no shortage of groups trying to cause disruption, from hacktivists to cyber gangs and even nation states.

What about the costs? What do companies have to pay when a data breach occurs?

Daugherty explains that JBS Foods was the victim of a ransomware attack, potentially originating from Russia, that shut down operations at 13 meat plants, causing chaos. Farms and restaurants were affected, and meat prices skyrocketed. In the end, JBS had to pay the extortionists $11 million in BTC. This cost is significant, but it doesn’t even include repairing the company’s reputation, public fines and more.

Daugherty elaborates on the fines, pointing to Equifax, which was fined at least $575 million after a data breach that lost consumer data for millions of people. Needless to say, it is worth preventing these attacks rather than having to clean them up.

Campbell calls these fines “reactionary” and questions whether the regulatory environment will change in the coming years. Daugherty responds that his discussions with policymakers reveal a focus on resilient cybersecurity practices, and they intend to strengthen national cybersecurity. Considerable resources are being spent on this, including $11 billion earmarked by the Biden administration. Daugherty hopes to see new infrastructure emerge from this investment, which will impact the food industry.

Overall, he expects to see increased pressure to report these breaches in a transparent and verifiable manner. Blockchain can help with this by implementing permissioned, shared alerts about events of national interest.

What is the typical timeline for discovering a hack?

Campbell asks Ward about the typical timeline for discovering a hack. According to a report by IBM, he says it takes around 187 days to discover a beach and another 75 days to contain it. The SmartLedger team believes this is unacceptable, and their tool, Sentinel Node, can significantly reduce that time.

What is the traditional forensic process like (pre-blockchain)? Walaszczyk explains that the forensic process is not significantly different from the Sentinel Node, but it should be much faster and cheaper. Preservation of evidence is key, and if this is not done correctly, everything else becomes invalid.

Walaszczyk elaborates on the process, explaining that the first step is to identify if a breach really happened, then we need to learn how it occurred and its size, followed by sending the right notifications, and once everything is confirmed, the incident response plan needs to be followed. Once again, evidence preservation is essential.

This entire process can take up to 270 days, and Sentinel Node can significantly reduce this time. How fast can it be? A minute or less, says Walaszczyk. The main objective is to reduce the identification time, and speed up the entire process of identifying breaches.

What are the other benefits of using blockchain technology for cybersecurity? Walaszczyk explains that the first step in understanding these is to understand what blockchain actually is. It is essentially a database with some unique properties, including decentralization and immutability. This means that no one can remove or change the data written to the blockchain. From the perspective of a tool like Sentinel Node, this means auditors can be confident that the data they’re looking at is legitimate and hasn’t been tampered with by attackers or other third parties.

More about Sentinel Node

Campbell asks Ward to tell us more about the Sentinel Node specifically. Ward explains that it combines real-time network file integrity monitoring and administrator accountability with scalable blockchain technology. Without the BSV blockchain, this product could not exist.

Sentinel Node is extremely easy to install, says Ward. The administrator can then log in with their private access key and observe a real-time check of the network’s health (every 10 seconds). If an alert is detected, it is immediately sent to the administrator and other permitted stakeholders. Whoever handles this notification must log in with their enterprise blockchain access key, creating true administrator responsibility.

Campbell is fascinated by the accountability part.

“Accountability and integrity of data is everything. That’s why we create these tools,” explains Ward.

He goes on to say that attackers almost always try to delete logs and cover their tracks, but the Sentinel Node, with real-time data written to the public blockchain, makes that impossible. It also allows businesses and organizations to find out who took which actions when the alert was triggered.

Highlights from this podcast episode

• Cyber ​​attacks such as ransomware and network breaches are a growing concern for the global food industry. An attack can have far-reaching implications because it is so fragile and interconnected.
• These attacks can be extremely costly for the companies and organizations involved. The costs are further increased when government fines are included.
• The current average detection time for network breaches is 187 days. It may take another 75 days to contain breaches and attacks.
• Blockchain-based cybersecurity tools like Sentinel Node can dramatically reduce detection time (to under a minute). They can also create true accountability, allowing organizations to see exactly how the breach occurred and who within the organization handled the alerts and what actions they took.

Watch: CoinGeek Weekly Livestream with Kurt Wuckert Jr. with SmartLedger

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