Using the Blockchain to secure information technology systems for organizations

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The Internet of Things was conceived with the continuous technology evolution. There are so many IT industry trends emerging as the requirements of people change continuously. Security for these systems has also become paramount.

In the information technology world these days, the IoT(internet of things) is making new opportunities and offering a competitive edge for business enterprises in new and current markets. The IoT touches everything, not just data. The technologies that have made the IoT are not only changing the internet, but instead change the things connected to the web. Since the data generation and analysis is very important to the internet of things, consideration should be given to the protection of data throughout the life cycle. Information management at all levels is complex since data would flow across a lot of administrative boundaries with various intents and policies.

THE ISSUE WITH THE CURRENT CENTRALIZED MODEL
The current ecosystems of the internet of things relay on brokered, centralized communication models, known otherwise as the server/client paradigm. All devices are identified, authenticated and connected via cloud servers sporting big processing and storage capacities. The connection of devices would have to go exclusively via the internet, even if they are just a few feet apart. Although this model has connected generic computing devices for years, and would continue supporting small-scale networks today, it won’t be able to respond to the rising needs of the big ecosystems in the future. Existing IoT solutions are costly due to the high maintenance and infrastructure with centralized clouds, networking equipment and big server farms.

THE BLOCKCHAIN APPROACH
Among the many IT services industry trends, one emerging system is the Blockchain Approach. It is a distributed ledger technology, which underpins Bitcoin. It has emerged as an object of interest in the technology industry and beyond. The blockchain technology provides a way to record transactions or any digital interaction in a manner that’s designed to be transparent, extremely resistant to outages, secure, efficient and auditable. As such, it could disrupt industries and allow new business models.

THE ADVANTAGES OF THE BLOCKCHAIN
The great advantage of Blockchain is that it is public. Every single person participating could see transactions and blocks stored in them. It does not mean that all everyone could see the actual transaction content, but protected by a private key. It is decentralized, thus there’s no one authority that could approve the set specific rules or transactions to have transactions accepted. This means that there is a big amount of trust involved because all network participants have to come up with a consensus to accept transactions. What is most important is that it is secure. The database could only be extended and previous records not could be altered.

TWO MAJOR KINDS OF BLOCKCHAIN
There are two main kinds of blockchain, the public and private. With a public blockchain, everyone could read or write data. Some limit the access only to reading and writing. For instance, Bitcoin uses an approach wherein anyone could write. With a private blockchain, all participants are trusted and known. This is useful when blockchain is utilized between organizations belonging to the same legal mother entity.

BLOCKCHAIN AND THE INTERNET OF THINGS
The technology is the missing link for settling scalability, privacy and reliability issues in the IoT. Blockchain technologies perhaps could be the silver bullet required by the industry. The technology could be used to track billions of connected devices, allow transactions and coordination processing between devices. Furthermore, it also allows considerable savings to manufacturers. The decentralized approach will eliminate singe failure points, building a more resilient ecosystem for devices to run. The cryptographic algorithms used by the technology makes consumer data more private.

The autonomous, decentralized and trustless capabilities of the blockchain makes it the ideal component to be a key element of internet of things solutions. It’s not a surprise that enterprise technologies have rapidly become one of the early adopters of the blockchain. In the internet of things network, the blockchain could keep an immutable history record of smart devices. The feature allows autonomous smart devices function without the need for centralized authority. The blockchain, as a result opens the door to a series of IoT instances that were remarkably hard or even impossible to implement.

LEVERAGING THE SECURE TECHNOLOGY
By leveraging the technology, IoT solutions enable trustless, secure messaging between devices in an internet of things environment. In this model, a blockchain would treat message exchanges the same as financial transactions in a Bitcoin network. To allow message exchanges, devices would leverage smart contracts that then model the agreement between the two. The use of blockchain enables genuine smart autonomous devices that could exchange data or could even execute financial transactions, even without a centralized broker.

The blockchain technology, with such a wide range of possibilities, it’s no surprise that it has the potential to boost the service delivery quality while enhancing data integrity and confidentiality. With its promise to provide transparent and secure transactions, the technology seems poised to be one of the key pillars of the digital world.

Ritesh Mehta
Ritesh Mehta works as a senior Technical Account Manager in a software development company named TatvaSoft Australia based in Melbourne. He specializes in Agile Scrum methodology, Marketing Ops (MRM) application development, Android app development, SAAS & SOA application development, Offshore & Vendor team management. Also, he is knowledgeable and well-experienced in conducting business analysis, product development, team management and client relationship management.

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