Sentinel Protocol-new era of cyber security based on blockchain

5 min readMar 16, 2018

What is Sentinel Protocol?

Sentinel Protocol is the first security platform designed on blockchain and its principles. Threat information is stored in transparent and decentralized database and shared among all users. Incentive system supports collaboration of security experts to prevent hacks, scams, or frauds against crypto assets.

The Problem

One of the main obstacles in mass adoption of blockchain technology are trust and security issues. The cryptocurrencies themselves are secure. But to make cryptocurrencies user friendlier,easier to use and obtain information the ecosystem around them was built. This ecosystem includes crypto-exchanges,crypto news websites,forums and social media.People use them to buy,sell,trade cryptocurrencies; get and share information;participate in ICO’s(crowd offerings of new crypto coins or tokens).This ecosystem is not as secure as blockchain and has vulnerabilities. Hackers and scammers are doing everything they can to take advantage of these flaws and users. Unlike cyber security vendors who use centralized databases and do not share information; hackers collaborate, share information and find vulnerabilities in such systems. If hackers attack is successful people lose their money and most importantly-trust. These issues prevent mass adoption of blockchain technology and hurt its reputation.

Here are some examples of major hacker attacks on Cryptocurrency community.

1. Mt. Gox was a bitcoin exchange handling over 70% of all bitcoin (“BTC”) transactions worldwide, as the largest bitcoin intermediary and the world’s leading bitcoin exchange. In February 2014, Mt. Gox suspended trading, closed its website and exchange service. Mt. Gox announced that approximately 850,000 bitcoins belonging to customers and the company were missing and likely stolen, an amount valued at more than $450 million at the time.

2. The DAO was a digital decentralized autonomous organization,and a form of investor-directed venture capital fund. The DAO was crowdfunded via a token sale in May 2016. It set the record for the largest crowdfunding campaign in history.In June 2016, users exploited a vulnerability in the DAO code to enable them to siphon off one third of The DAO’s funds to a subsidiary account.

3. In June 2017 Bithumb,the 4th largest cryptocurrency exchange was hacked.Personal information and assets of many users were stolen.

If hackers can break security of large companies that spend huge resources on security. If they even can influence presidential elections. It means ordinary users who have very resources are left very vulnerable for different attacks and scams.

How Sentinel Protocol can solve this problem?

· Collective intelligence
Sentinel Protocol security experts(Sentinels) are chosen through voting from other experts. Sentinels are responsible for researching and analyzing threats.Then adding them to decentralized database and giving score to each threat. Threat Reputation Database is freely available for everyone.Individual users,crypto-exchanges and payment services can use/integrate database for protection.

· Artificial intelligence
The mechanism of artificial intelligence is to model large quantity of quality data using optimized algorithm.Hackers often use high number of attacks to exploit system vulnerabilities. For example, once hacker entered internal network of crypto-exchange,it becomes hard to differentiate him from normal users. Artificial intelligence mechanism can be used to track general behavior patterns of user wallets. Then if behavior and actions of wallet changes in suspicious way it is identified as threat and actions are taken.

Security features of Sentinel Protocol.

· Threat reputation database.
Centralized databases of big companies or security firms are vulnerable to information manipulation and abuse. They are big targets for hackers attacks to interrupt normal work of database. Threat reputation database has much higher protection because of decentralization.
Another advantage is lack of transparency and sharing of information regarding threat by security vendors. Threat reputation is open and I believe collective intelligence and openness of information will contribute to better protection. For example, TRDB can be used to track stolen or obtained by scam crypto assets and share this information with crypto service providers. So, these funds cannot be exchanged, spent or laundered. In future, it might even be possible that exchanges will accept these funds, but after receiving them immediately send them back to victims from whom assets were originally stolen.

· Machine learning integrated security wallet.
S-wallet connects to TRDB for latest security updates to protect from known threats. For example, one use case is to protect user from interacting with wallets with stolen crypto assets or block transactions to addresses that are used by scammers.
But what differentiates S-wallet from your regular antivirus is that it uses machine learning to analyze data and respond to unknown threats. If you downloaded the file containing virus that is not yet in database, the machine learning security wallet will detect and block suspicious files. Then will send this info to sentinel protocol. Sentinels will analyze threat and add to TRDB. Next, they will report the origin of file to community.

· Distributed malware analysis sandbox (D-sandbox)
This is virtual machine with infinite scaling because of distributed nature of blockchain where nodes can use their collective computational power. D-sandbox will be used to analyze submitted threats or unverified programs without risks for user.

Concensus

Sentinel Protocol uses Delegated Proof of Stake algorithm. In this system coin holders vote for transaction validators. As a result only limited amount of validators can verify transactions and new blocks. Initially validators will be chosen by Uppsala foundation based on their qualifications and expertise. The reputation of validators is represented by Sentinel Points(SP). Only Sentinels (security experts who actively contribute to Sentinel Protocol) can obtain SP based on their performance and then vote for validators reputation. The Validator or Sentinel who performs dishonest actions intending harm will lose his reputation score as punishment. In this system, the large number of Validators is unnecessary. Only ten validators will be chosen. 7 will be actively validating transactions, generating blocks and updating TRDB. Another 3 will have standby status and be validators only in situations with high network latency and delays.

Incentive system

The Sentinel Protocol has circulating currency named Uppsala(UPP). For such a system to function and be effective there should be incentive for honest contributors. They will receive UPP tokens as a reward for their work with amount based on their reputation (Sentinel Points).

Extra security services of Sentinel Protocol such as consulting, vulnerability assessment and others will have a fee. The fee will be paid in UPP tokens using smart contract. Then UPP tokens will then be redistributed.