This week I attended a session by Security Weekly Podcast on YouTube where they touched on Hacker’s view on today’s emerging tech and security. A session by Tyler Robinson, Beau Bulock, and Paul Asadoorian.
History of Blockchain
2009: Bitcoin launches as the first public ledger for transactions using blockchain.
2015: Ethereum launches and adds smart contracts functionality
2017: First decentralized application(dApp) gains traction
2018: Decentralized Finance(Defi) protocols
2021: Blockchain is used for supply chain tracking, digital identity, anti-piracy, NFTs, and real estate amongst others
Why Blockchain Security
Blockchain Hacks Result in Huge Monetary Loss
- Centralized Exchanges: over $2.5 Billion has been stollen since 2011
- Smart Contract Hacks: $ 1.2 Billion was stolen in 2021 and over $1.5 Billion has been stolen in 2022 so far.
- Consumer Wallets: Millions lost through social engineering and remote exploitation
Why So Many Hacks
Blockchain technology is an emerging technology and many organizations are racing to be “first to market”. Consumers are uninformed of risks and traditional security protection tends to be an afterthought.
Blockchain Ecosystem
- Layer1: underlying blockchain protocol itself for example Bitcoin Core, GEth
- Layer2: an overlying network on top of Layer1 typically focused on scalability for example Bitcoin Lighting network
- Smart contracts: they automatically execute programs deployed to the blockchain e.g Tokens, NFTs, dApps
- Software Wallets: custodial wallets vs non-custodial wallets
- Hardware wallets: physical devices for storing private keys that are then used to send & receive funds