Blockchain is becoming key for global trade — but is that a gift for hackers?
In 2017, hundreds of companies fell victim to a ransomware attack called NotPetya. Maersk and FedEx saw their global operations disrupted for weeks and suffered hundreds of millions of dollars in losses. While ports and freight forwarders are turning to new technologies, NotPetya was also a stark reminder that cybersecurity is difficult to retrofit: it must be embedded from the beginning.
Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies have the potential to allow for unprecedented efficiency and transparency, optimizing operations much beyond what the current ecosystem of central databases and paper-driven bills of lading could ever achieve.
However, all technologies exhibit weaknesses and vulnerabilities depending on how organizations use them. Everything from the combustion engine and atomic energy to computers and social networks has been leveraged for purposes other than they were originally intended. Blockchain is no different: its weaknesses and vulnerabilities will be leveraged for a variety of interests. Not all of them will be legitimate.
Question the past to trust the future
Blockchain is, in short, a system to record transactions. For centuries, in the absence of a better way, we have created trust intermediaries to keep such records intact: banks, notaries, customs, and more. Blockchain’s promise is to replace these trust intermediaries with technology: in other words, to replace human trust with digital trust.
Trust historically stems from predictability: we trust our neighbors because we can predict their behavior thanks to our laws and customs. We trust our planes because we can predict how they will act in the sky thanks to safety protocols and third-party certification. In the digital world, digital trust also comes from predictability: for us to trust the blockchain, we will need to predict its behavior, to ensure that it does only what it is supposed to. We enforce this through cybersecurity.
Blockchain has been hyped beyond reason in the past decade, and from a cybersecurity standpoint, many have claimed its cryptographic foundation to be the ultimate guarantee. On the other side, early adopters whose fortunes have vanished in cryptocurrency hacks and heists have publicly questioned the same foundation. As the technology matures and this polarization fades away, what remains?
For now, confusion.
Most organizations in the supply chain industry and beyond are still focusing the bulk of their efforts trying to understand the technology.
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