An interview with the Keybox CTO — How does Keybox work?
“As Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are becoming more widely used, we have also seen a surge in digital storage hacks and frauds. What we are working on at Keybox is to combine a variety of security elements to make Keybox the safer way for our customers to store their digital valuables. We also hope this will remove the sense of fear and distrust that people have with the cryptocurrency market.” — Adam Walker, Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Keybox
At Keybox, our priority is protecting our customers’ digital assets. As a decentralised vault app with a multi-layered security architecture, Keybox maximises the safe storage of digital valuables. But what do all of those terms even mean? And how do they work to ensure that your digital keys are safe?
I sat down with our CTO, Adam Walker, to go through the basics of how Keybox works. In this article, we will explain what makes Keybox more secure without giving away too much of the secret sauce that makes our tools so unique.
Decentralisation
This is really where the biggest advantage of Keybox lies. Having customers’ information saved in a decentralised format across various networks and nodes means that there is no one single point of failure (See below). When a customer stores their private keys on Keybox, the information is shredded and spread across numerous nodes and locations. This implies that even if one of the system’s nodes was compromised, the hacker would only be accessing a small fraction of the digital key, which in itself does not reveal any useful information. The decentralised nature also means that no one will ever know where exactly the users’ keys are stored. Plus, the more people who are storing their digital keys on the Keybox system, the more nodes that will be created, and so the greater the number of places where the keys could be stored.
So wait, no one can access the data you store on Keybox? Nope. Not even the employees at Keybox can access users’ information? That’s exactly right. The only person who can access the information is… you. As Keybox runs on a smart contract, it means that although we write the code for the Keybox logic, we don’t actually see the information inside the system.
Single point of failure
The biggest problem with most wallet solutions is that they have a single point of failure. This means that if one part of the system fails, everything stops working. Simply google “DNS-based attacks” to see the numerous crypto wallets that have been hacked because they use a centralised DNS (domain name system). Or you’ve likely heard of hardware wallets, which although claim to be 100% secure, when you lose them– you can pretty much say goodbye to your cryptocurrencies. What Keybox does differently is that it doesn’t store your keys at one access point, instead, it splits the information across numerous locations.
Usability
Another critical advantage of Keybox is that it is both usable and secure, by incorporating the usability and accessibility of a hot wallet and the security of cold storage. Hot wallets refer to storing systems that are connected to the web and are typically instantly accessible, whereas cold storage is services stored offline. Cold storage would be through the use of an external device to protect against the vulnerabilities of the web e.g. imagine a private key written on a piece of paper stored in a vault in the mountains. Although both storage solutions have their benefits, simply relying on one can be risky (see how more than $500 million worth of NEM coins were lost through a hot wallet hack or how a man losing his cold storage wallet, cost him $800,000).
