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insight story blockchain

Blockchain’s amazing versatility promises world-changing uses

  • min read
    • New blockchain applications are spreading fast in every type of business. It can do things once hard to do reliably, like validating supply chain sustainability, giving consumers more trustworthy information and even rewarding people for getting exercise. Does your business need to get to grips with blockchain, and how could you use it to transform your business for the better? Kaspersky's new podcast, Insight Story, unpacks emerging tech trends with global specialists and businesses successfully using the tech. Episode 3 looks at blockchain. I speak with UK-based Helen Disney, Director of The Realization Group and Founder of Unblocked. Germany-based Abhi Sharma, Global Lead of Mobility Platform, Blockchain and Partner Universe at BASF also joins us. A simple way to understand blockchain Helen likens blockchain to an old idea everyone recognizes. "We've had ledgers for a long time – someone sends you an invoice, you write down when someone pays and match the two. Blockchain is a digital, distributed ledger. It provides an audit trail for all transactions and activities on a shared network. 'Distributed' means everyone in that network has a copy, so you can't go back in time and change things." Businesses see that a reliable, shared ledger that's hard to change makes more things possible. Helen says, "There are examples of using blockchain in business and for social impact, like in healthcare and supply chains, in creative industries, the energy sector and environmental initiatives. In financial services, blockchain can create efficiencies, speed up settlement times and let people transact with assets not currently tradable." Blockchain Research Institute continually examines the many applications of blockchain, from ocean health to medical research to border security. Grand View Research estimates the global blockchain market is worth 10 billion US dollars today and will grow 88 percent each year. Cottoning on to value in supply chain sustainability Abhi Sharma explains a BASF blockchain initiative that capitalizes on the premium consumers are willing to pay for sustainable products to incentivize sustainable cotton production. The largely undifferentiated nature of the commodity market has made this challenging in the past. Abhi says, "Farmers have had no incentive to use better practices to protect the environment because that information doesn't flow to the consumer." Seed 2 Sew aims to change that. "Farmers enter information in a mobile application at every stage of their season, harvest and delivery of goods. When they use sustainable practices like natural irrigation, they can enter the practice in the application and take photos for proof, creating extra value." It's not just farmers who could claim credit for doing the right thing. "Other players in the market could be motivated to install solar panels, use sustainable electricity and so forth." Seed 2 Sew is designed to fit naturally with how farmers already work. "They're not sitting at a computer filling in spreadsheets – they're taking photos in the field and feeding that data into the blockchain. Their motivation is high, because there's high demand on the retail side for more sustainable products." And on the retail side, consumers need confidence in sustainability claims. "Consumers are becoming more conscious. They want to buy less, but buy more meaningful, story-driven products. We're creating that traceability and transparency that prevents greenwashing." Where to start with blockchain But where should a business leader start? Helen thinks it's down to understanding your business as much as blockchain. "Think about, in my business, where could this be beneficial? Do I want to offer some reward points or incentives to customers, change the business's financial infrastructure, or do something with my supply chain? Start with what's important to you, and look for real-world examples of what's been done." Many early-adopter projects haven't continued, and Abhi sees lessons in that. "Organizations need a start-up culture. You need fail fast, learn fast models. But it's more about the people than the investment – whether they can drive a project, whether they can scale it. Your people will drive your idea into the marketplace." He thinks exploring blockchain is worth it regardless of whether you ultimately use it. "For those who've dived into it, it shifts their mindset. Thinking about the possibilities gives them different ideas. Once you realize you can do something in a decentralized or distributed way, it changes how you think." Blockchain and cybersecurity Head of Kaspersky Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT) for Latin America, Fabio Assolini, thinks businesses should note risks associated with blockchain, whether you use it in your business or not. "Blockchain isn't immutable. Attacks on these systems have happened, like 51 percent attacks." That's when a group of cryptocurrency miners achieves control of more than half of a network's computational power, allowing them to alter the blockchain. "Another problem with blockchain is double-spending – under certain conditions, miners can modify blocks to spend cryptocurrency twice. For small companies, that can be a real problem." But cybercriminals using blockchain is behind a fast growing number of attacks. "Cryptojacking is one of the most common attacks. Cybercriminals hijack the power of processing on your servers by programming your device to mine cryptocurrency for them. When they invade a system, they will also sell the access to other cybercriminals." Cryptojacking is rising dramatically – Kaspersky research showed a 230 percent increase in 2022. It can slow systems and ramp up your energy bills, but Fabio warns there aren't always obvious signs. "More professional fraudsters prepare crypto mining software that runs smoothly. The administrator may not realize there's something going on." Businesses can prevent cryptojacking by adopting cybersecurity best practice. "There's no single action, but a set of good practices to protect against remote access. For example, you need firewalls, access control to all systems and logging of all user activity," says Fabio. "Attacks that install crypto mining software will also be detected by a good endpoint security solution." Where will blockchain go next? Blockchain will be as common as smartphones, according to Helen. "In the future, we'll all have a web wallet and assets and tokens sitting on blockchains." She believes the incentives and benefits will compel consumers to adopt blockchain-based products fast. "We're already seeing examples, like play-to-earn games, where you can earn cryptocurrency playing computer games and then trade it for other things. Sweatcoin lets you earn money for walking. These apps also generate data business or research organizations could use to understand our lives better." Our experts have a few thoughts for those considering or starting to use blockchain. Abhi says, "Business leaders should think more about how to maintain it. I see many sustainability-related blockchain initiatives, but few survive." Helen thinks we need a more widespread understanding of blockchain to unleash its true potential. "We can solve big global problems by building communities of interest and incentivizing change. Blockchain is for everybody. You needn't be technical to understand it. Make time to learn, and you'll find it fascinating." Listen to the full Insight Story audio series on Podbean or your usual podcast provider.
trust management

Businesses need trust, and trust management is here to help.

  • min read
    • Trust is crucial to personal and professional decisions. It determines which brands we'll share our data with or work with and allows managers to let employees work flexibly. But could trust help us make better decisions about sharing corporate information and IT network access? Workplace mental health expert Dr. Joti Samra says pandemic life has given us "new co-workers:" Those we live with 24 hours a day, seven days a week. My partner Dr. Theo Dimitrakos is a world-leading expert in trust management, currently working in the Trustworthiness Theory, Technology and Engineering Lab, Huawei Europe. He's a much-cited author, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Kent, where he chairs the advisory board of Kent Interdisciplinary Research Centre in Cyber Security and founder of an international trust management research community. Between lockdown chores and deciding who should load the dishwasher – while we wait for Samsung's futuristic new kitchen robot – we had a cup of tea and chat about trust management. Dr. Theo Dimitrakos Susi O'Neill: Trust management, from what I hear between the walls, seems complex. What are the basics – how would you explain it to your mother? Theo Dimitrakos: Before retiring, my mother ran an olive oil business in Greece. I learned many skills by helping the family business. In the 1980s, I installed an Amstrad computer in our Athens shop window, showing 8-bit animations to amazed passers. My parents would produce print packaging slips giving measurements of the olive oil's pureness from the state chemical analysis agency. This was before standard classifications like 'virgin' and 'extra virgin' olive oil. Central to trust management is reliability assessment, so parties can trust each other to share data. If I claim my olive oil is 100 percent unrefined virgin oil, you need to be able to check my claim. It helps if I give you a trust statement, like the oil purity label. You need to validate the assessor – in this case, seeing proof from the state agency who is an authority qualified to assess the oil. I can verify your mother's olive oil is delicious. What are some more key concepts in trust management? In the olive oil example, recognizing authority is a key concept which underpins trust assessment. Different methods of measuring trust are also important. My colleague Professor Audun Jøsang, who invented subjective logic, created a calculus for computing in trust networks. It's now combined with decision networks to measure trustworthiness in neural networks. Trust-based decisions inform how an intelligent agent program makes final purchasing decisions using data. Professor Harrison McKnight, my co-editor for Trust Management VI, developed a cognitive model to explain the process. Another fundamental of trust management is trust negotiation: Incremental information disclosure. Organizations must take care of what they disclose, to whom and how. Releasing information over time can help reach a trust level to share more valuable data for a common goal. Trust negotiation can help decide how to share credentials to achieve the least-privilege principle (users can only access the parts of the system or data they need for their job) to implement the zero-trust security model. Trust negotiation algorithms do this and more. Before you let someone have privileged information, you may want to check their security clearance. In an IT system, you may want to share as little information as possible for the task, then let the system ask for more information when you need higher-level access. How did you become interested in trust management? After gaining my Computer Science Ph.D. at Imperial College, London, I worked at a UK government computing lab. We experienced the first dot-com bubble crash around 2001. People lost trust in tech businesses. I felt I had to take action, so I got involved in an international partnership between government, academics and industry to improve trust between customers and companies. In 2002, with the late Christos Nikolau (IBM and University of Crete,) we established iTrust, an interdisciplinary network including experimental economists, philosophers, and cybersecurity and access management specialists. Trust management previously meant identity and access management for IT networks. We broaden it to include models for measuring and increasing trust and consumer confidence. I found the experimental economists' research particularly interesting. Microeconomics Professor Claudia Keser wanted to look at giving incentives for supplying data. We now see that in practice as people trade their data for free online services. In 2004, I led an international applied research project that developed a framework for managing trust when sharing sensitive data between organizations. The research informed web services trust protocols in use and created a start-up that's now a market leader in dynamic authorization. My interest in trust management continues. At the forthcoming IFIP conference, I will present new methods to authorize and change a person's access depending on their situation. For example, if they're working at home and others are present who shouldn't have access to sensitive documents, or they're trying to evade detection when taking photos of confidential documents on their computer screen. How has trust management evolved since then? There have been significant developments and new identity verification models, virtual organizations and consensus-based decisions. There are now more decentralized ways to create digital identities, share and verify them without violating privileges, nor the identity provider needing to track who's used them. How does this relate to decentralized data models like blockchain? Blockchain's decentralized trust model has distributed credentials and verifiers. It can be used to implement a trust model, but it's not the only way to implement trust management today. Credentials verification is a model promoted by W3C – the community that sets global open web standards – for verifying web information. It has nothing to do with blockchain but can be used alongside it. My colleague Professor David Chadwick, a co-editor of the standard, highlights this distinction. Blockchain or not, it means someone can prove your credentials without assuming a centralized authority, the party and identity provider issuer know each other. And you could use someone's credentials without the identity provider tracking what you do – for example, when you share your identity documents to open a new bank account or use a trust-led community like Airbnb. If credential verification becomes popular, big tech firms like Google will be less able to track us. How can businesses establish a suitable trust management model? Knowing your business means understanding its processes and data flows with suppliers, incentives for users and which authorities regulate your data or services. Understand your relationships, model them, design your system, then make it secure. Apply security from concept to deployment. How can businesses use trust management to improve IT security? Trust management predates zero trust and will probably outlive it. Zero trust integrates different decentralized trust models. It's becoming popular because of how technology has evolved: Our work environment has become more decentralized with cloud computing, remote working and data sharing. Zero trust is about decentralized trust models, fusing trust authorization and verification versus reliability. It means you need to check your assertions about someone rather than rely on another authority to validate them. You need to examine the subject and score them, then use that score and the outcome of your trust algorithm to decide what systems and information they can access. Now we can measure trust, so your decisions must be calculated. You can have verification like digital signatures, behavior analysis, biometrics, or a combination. This creates a trust score for each entity that should be linked to your access management policies. Authorization becomes dynamic and continuous. This is often overlooked when considering zero trust strategies for security and access control that only focus on prevention. As trust values change over time, authorization levels and access must change. You may need to increase, reduce or revoke authorization previously given. With Dr. Fabio Martinelli, Vice-Chair of the European Cybersecurity Organization, we recently developed a lightweight enabling technology for network gateways and consumer internet of things (IoT) devices that combine dynamic authorization with an evaluation of trust levels. I hope this helps zero trust models go beyond corporate networks to smart homes and data usage control. Excellent! Now I feel suitably informed about trust. So in place of the dishwasher robot, can I use a trust management model to make sure you do this? Yes, but we first need to set up an algorithm and scoring method, agree on incentives and maybe a consensus protocol. Perhaps technology models can't solve all our challenges yet. Opinions are those of the interviewee and do not represent his employers (corporate or academic).
blockchain business vulnerabilities

Blockchain security isn’t bullet-proof. Here’s how to not get hacked.

  • min read
    • According to a PwC survey (of 600 business executives in 15 countries,) 84 percent of respondents are actively involved with blockchain. Blockchain is just one example of a distributed ledger technology (DLT), a digital system for recording the transaction of assets (money or data) without a central data store or admin functionality. More companies are turning to DLTs like blockchain to help streamline their business, improve data transparency and reduce operational costs. From smart contracts that automate secure payments to managing customer interactions, blockchain can improve how we do business. But, like any emerging technology, new risks and vulnerabilities can cause damage. We'll get into that, but first, an important distinction. Public vs. private distributed ledgers Public ledgers mean an open network which anyone can join and contribute to. They work best for cryptocurrencies, due to anonymity features and allowing transactions across borders. Then there are private or enterprise DLTs. These identify and authorize users and determine their roles. Data is encrypted and only authorized users can operate it. Read more about both here. Let's explore private DLTs, which more companies are using for their benefits, from accelerated workflows to authenticating data. Joint ventures on blockchain DLTs are great for joint ventures – notably because they act as both a registry and a financial database for payments and transactions between partners, which are logged and approved by all participants on the blockchain. It's a trusted, transparent system – everyone authorized has access to data and knows how it's logged. Essential features are decentralization (for data transparency and trust), scalability (which enables adding new participants to the network) and the use of smart contracts. But centralization can create a security risk. Blockchain data is trusted when it's distributed, so the more nodes (those who have access to the blockchain system, either computer programs or authorized users) that can approve transactions, the more you can trust the data. That's why deploying blockchain within a single company or organization to secure data doesn't make much sense as "consensus" comes from a sole authority. Why one of the most successful enterprise blockchain platforms isn't as secure as you think One of the best known enterprise-grade platforms, Hyperledger Fabric, creates consensus using a permission voting algorithm. But how secure is it? Once the majority of nodes in the blockchain validate the transaction, we reach consensus and finality (a new block or sequence is added to the ledger.) Hyperledger Fabric provides channels – isolated "subnets" of data exchange between specific network members. It's useful for industrial and manufacturing scenarios where a blockchain may include potential competitors. The separate channels in Hyperledger Fabric can prevent data from being accessible to participants from outside of a designated channel. But the consensus mechanism could be misconfigured – this might happen at design and deployment stages, often revealed too late to fix easily because, for users, everything seems to be working fine. Then it can't validate nodes, even for transactions involving many participants across several channels. As a result, the consensus is limited to validators of a single channel who confirm adding the transaction to the blockchain. Beware of blockchain after a cyberattack Beware hacked user accounts. During a cyberattack, data could be tampered with and then submitted to the blockchain. For example, let's say a user is attacked while approving commercial purchase agreements in a joint venture, further executed by a smart contract. If the attacker gets access to the contract, they can tamper with the supplier's bank account and amount in the contract. The "correct" agreement will then trigger execution of a smart contract, meaning some or all of the money goes to the attacker. Due to blockchain's inherent immutability (i.e. it can't be changed), it's going to be very difficult (and expensive) to fix the incorrect data. What's more, if this data gets into smart contracts, the issue will snowball and subsequently cause big problems. In this purchase agreement example, to fix the incorrect transaction, payment needs to be reconciled. But that's not simple. They can try to stop and revert a bank transaction, but blockchain can't undo its immutable records. It will store information that a certain company (blockchain participant) has paid, whereas the supplier has not received the funds. It's a double loss: companies spent a fortune on the blockchain solution, then get their money stolen. Blockchain risks for large enterprises and corporate groups Similar blockchain technologies are used for transactions between banks or groups of banks. As the technologies are the same, they have the same vulnerabilities. This opens wide opportunities for an attacker: having performed a successful attack on one bank, they're more likely to be more successful and quicker with the same attack on another member of the group. If just one vulnerability of a single participant is exploited on the blockchain, there's a huge cybersecurity risk for other participants on the same system, running the risk of a mass leak of sensitive financial or private data across a group. Blockchain can cause a bottleneck Blockchain is designed for transactions, so it works well for trading and integrates with financial systems to support the supply of goods, automated pricing and using smart contracts to execute financial transactions. Smooth running in good times. But blockchain could also be a bottleneck. Lots of transactions are processed simultaneously, which a good platform should process rapidly. But if the system can't handle the load, it can fail. Getting blockchain right for your business There's no "one size fits all" with blockchain. Right now, given DLTs nascent maturity, it's difficult to know how well any individual solution will perform. It's unlikely we'll soon see a solution that works perfectly straight out of the box. You'll need to invest in customization to create the right process for your business needs. These steps can help plan your best-fit blockchain strategy. The right tools for the job Consider the process you want blockchain to automate. It should be iterative, involve many parties, and it shouldn't include data that needs to be modified or deleted. If it doesn't fit these criteria, blockchain and DLT isn't the right tech. Start the journey with small steps So you decide to launch on blockchain. Like other big IT projects, plan the rollout in stages to test and fine-tune. Keep in mind that DLT is most powerful at handling large-scale processes. You may not get immediate cost savings from a solution for one department, even if it works smoothly, but you can start small to test how it works. Then take the next step – scale to counterparties working with that department. Then get bigger by adding external suppliers. Even with blockchain, you still need to pay attention to cybersecurity Blockchain is more secure than many other enterprise data solutions, but it's not bullet-proof to cyberattacks. You'll need an endpoint cybersecurity solution on all corporate devices accessing the blockchain, which should be assessed with a third-party cybersecurity provider. Audit your smart contracts. A vulnerable or inconsistent contract may lead to an expensive problem to fix down the line. By deploying blockchain, you're establishing a new IT infrastructure in your organization. A vulnerability could lead to an attack and penetration of your corporate network. So new software and servers need protecting. Always use firewalls and install server cybersecurity tools to run scans, encrypt data and renew licenses. Finally, run a penetration test to reveal weak spots. All parties in your blockchain must apply the same level of security. Agree on common security policies with participants; it may be tricky due to different security practices but otherwise, your data and systems are at risk. There's no doubt; blockchain will revolutionize how companies collaborate for the better. But as with most new techs, pay attention to how you can best protect your data.
spacegraph interview

Shimmer, SPARKLE and digital toilets: The art and cybersecurity world of Lin Hsin Hsin

  • min read
    • As part of Kaspersky's Bring on the Future series, we meet people and businesses around the world who are changing the industry, and society, for the better. Lin Hsin Hsin is the Founder and CTO of SpaceGraph. She's an inventive technologist, artist, poet and composer from Singapore whose practice is deeply rooted in mathematics and information technology. In 1994, she established the Lin Hsin Hsin Art Museum – the first virtual museum in the world. I met Lin at a recent cybersecurity conference, and we discussed the connections between cyber-tech and art in her work. Oleg: How did you become interested in cybersecurity? Lin Hsin Hsin: Cybersecurity is a discipline I'm hugely interested in. I specialize in threat intelligence. I'm particularly interested in new encryption methods and emerging technologies like blockchain and biometrics. I like exploring smart contracts too – these are an integral part of cryptocurrencies but they're not so 'smart' – they use weak programming language with flawed language design. I think of cybersecurity as a 'cat and mouse' game between the cybercriminals and the security experts. Can we beat them? Well said! Even more so at the enterprise level, incidents show that people are often the weakest link. All you need is a moment of lapsed attention and all your cautious preparation is rendered invalid. On the other hand, enterprises are constantly battling with insider threats too. Is it possible to have a quantum leap in cybersecurity? Well, yes, the deployment of data science and advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) can propel us toward better solutions, but hackers are also using the same tools and processes to get ahead of the curve. Recently you created a series of artworks around Brexit. Will you create more art based on political themes? My Brexit Art Series consists of 50 digital artworks – it's now complete. Why 50? Because of Article 50! I even created a markup language <BREXML> based on the term 'Brexit.' You invented the first 100 percent Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) protocol, known as SpaceGraph, and you excel in using blockchain algorithms. What are your thoughts about using blockchain? I was the first person in the world to author the phenomenon of cryptocurrency, back in 1996. To date, there are only two protocols in existence, Bitcoin and Ethereum. The rest are either platforms or apps. The 10-year-old Bitcoin protocol is all about mining, where transactions are verified by peer-to-peer networking through cryptography and recorded in a public-distributed ledger called blockchain. Ethereum is a modified Bitcoin consensus via transaction-based state transitions. In June 2016, Ethereum and ĐAO (the related decentralized autonomous organization) was exploited due to several security vulnerabilities associated with ĐAO's smart contract software. It performed credible trackable, but irreversible, transactions without third parties to reduce transaction costs. Every transaction executed on Ethereum requires gas, defined as a fraction of an Ethereum token. There was a time when people thought blockchain was immutable. Now people have realized a few 51% attacks (blockchain attacks) do exist. Will these attacks persist? Yes, definitely. In May 2018, Bitcoin Gold – then the 26th-largest cryptocurrency – suffered a 51% attack. The malicious actor, who controlled a vast amount of Bitcoin Gold's hashpower, was able to double spend for several days, eventually stealing 18 million US dollars worth of Bitcoin Gold. More interestingly, it's the 34% attack, via the tangle – a distributed ledger fundamentally distinct from a blockchain, but designed to achieve similar goals – that could be more of a risk. It's called a '34% attack' because it would take just 34 percent of network hashing power to carry out the attack. You're a pioneer in both the IT industry and digital art. How do you imagine the future of digital art? We used to read physical copies of newspapers and books. How many people still have this habit? Book stores have converted to cafés for people to socialize, though most people are ordering a drink with their eyeballs glued to their mobile screen rather than interacting with another person! Will the advance of neuro-interfaces create artificial effects on our senses? Yes, these already exist. Recently, I invented some shimmering art for your pleasure! SPARKLE (Shimmering Pixels Assimilated Resistive Touchscreen Kindle iLuminated Emissions) is my latest invention. Will physical art survive? Archiving art is a nightmare because its materials always degenerate. It needs a great deal of space and preservation. Let me take you further on the journey. With the current capabilities of neuro-networks Generative Adversarial Network (GAN and deepGAN), the days of Hollywood's rule are numbered! Do we even need actors, cameras or production crew? I'm also a composer. I've recreated Western orchestral instruments from alternative sounds. For example, using the sound of water rippling, gushing and dripping, you can create the foundation of a sonic tone for a digital musical instrument. There's no difference in building a cat's meow or a dog's bark from this digital instrument. Don't you think something would be lost in the process? No! This is a replacement – there's no loss. New art and art forms can be created by harnessing the inherent properties of digital, like the internet and smartphone. I'm a huge admirer of the Bolshoi Ballet. The AI-assisted and sensor-based pointed shoes can be used to track a dancer's movements, training the dancer's skills to perfection. By measuring the dancer's exact body, it's also faster and better. Of course, robots could replace ballerinas very soon. How have you used virtual reality (VR) in your art? I started creating 3D art back in 1982. My first awareness of VR was in 1997, when I met the father of VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language), Mark Pesces, in Los Angeles, USA. I started making VR art two years later, the same year I exhibited my first 3D printing work. I was the first person in the world to successfully use equations to create 3D design for sculptures, objects and jewelry. Fast-forward to 2011, I invented the first cardboard VR glass, three years before Google Cardboard! There's a lot of talk about digitization and tokenization in art, but people sometimes say viewing digitized art in cyberspace feels 'fake' and 'bland.' What's your view? Art was digitized about two decades ago! About the tokenization of art, I can't see the benefits because you must first filter out all the fakes, and that in itself is a mammoth task! I've delivered lectures on fake art, both fake non-digital art as well as fake digital art. Recently I created a method to make a digital canvas. It redefines the medium. If you use a physical bristle to draw an elephant on textured cloth or canvas, there will be two different impressions, so you will see two different elephants. I programmed a digital canvas to create this textured effect, to evoke a feeling. It's designed to make you feel better, compared to seeing the image with the factory default settings. It's like going to a concert hall to hear a concert and discussing the acoustics over a glass of wine in the intermission, compared to staying home and listening to the concert on your headphones. You're the first person I'm sharing this concept with! I'm delighted to hear about it! How do you see the future of utility tokens and cryptocurrency? Will the world adopt cryptocurrency as its preferred payment method? In all countries, the function of a central bank is to exercise control of the country's monetary system and policy. Central banks issue and regulate, limiting the circulation of the national currency. Other than security tokens and stable coins, cryptocurrency is decentralized and unregulated by financial policymakers, hence their objections to it. But several countries, like Luxembourg, Malta and Marshall Islands, have endorsed and adopted cryptocurrencies as their sovereign and legal tender. As cryptography is anonymous, it eases peer-to-peer transactions and facilitates instant currency exchanges. It's the rise of the truly 'cashless society.' It may even help to find solutions to debt. That would be a game-changer. What's your perspective on quantum computing? Unlike the existing computing world, quantum computing is based on qubits – sub-atomic bits such as electrons or photons. In cryptocurrency, quantum computers can break the elliptic curve cryptography efficiently in the two existing protocols, Bitcoin and Ethereum. Though not tested, it shouldn't affect the third protocol, SpaceGraph™ that I architected in 2018. A quantum computer can calculate the private key from a signature, although it may not be as useful, as there's no longer any credit on the address. In any case, it can also exercise powerful attacks on the RSA asymmetric key systems. Art vs technology: How do you share these disciplines in your life? There is no 'art.' I define ART as: Art Requires Technology Technology Redefines Art What are your hopes for the future? I'd like a future devoid of scams and fakes. About a year ago, I was attending a tech event. When I was waiting for our (human-made) coffee, I met a man who asked me what I did for work. I replied, "I'm an artist." He was shocked. "Why are you at a tech event? What else do you do?" I replied, "Cybersecurity." He became more puzzled and asked, "What's the connection?" I said, "The logic is very simple: cybersecurity prevents the theft of my digital IP." Eradicating plagiarism, fakes and lies is important to my future as a digital artist, and for the world of technology.
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About Secure Futures

Secure Futures magazine is your go-to business guide for opinions, trends and insight into the world of technology and cybersecurity. We help your business to bring on the future. Brought to you by Kaspersky, the global cybersecurity experts.

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