Cyber Security in Web3 with Brett Johnson
Brett Johnson discusses Cyber Security in Web3 with Vivi Lin on Web3 Demystified
Brett Johnson is an OG United States Most Wanted criminal hacker who was once given the title “The Original Internet Godfather” by the US Secret Service. But today, he says he’s committed to protecting businesses and individuals from the type of person he used to be.
Join Vivi Lin and Brett Johnson as they discuss the explosion in cybercrime and how mass adoption of Web3 technology can help eliminate vulnerabilities with trustless blockchain systems that achieve consensus with code rather than faulty human judgment.
You Can’t Regulate Something You Don’t Understand
Today, cybercrime is easy to commit. There are marketplaces of off-the-shelf tools, products, and services — The space has evolved into cybercrime-as-service, with a particular spike over the pandemic. There are millions of active cyber criminals, and there is very little that authorities can do about it.
Clearly, it’s critical to understand the internet environment before you can regulate anything online. At least in the US, it’s apparent that political officials don’t know how the internet works, let alone Web3, so can we trust those individuals to regulate it? In short, we can’t. It will fall into the hands of the Web3 community itself.
Why Being a Human is your Point of Failure
90% of cyber crimes are accomplished through social engineering — with humans being the biggest vulnerability. Web2 crimes like BEC (Business Email Compromise) are billion-dollar industries that prey on human nature to exploit people’s trust. Why would any criminal spend years trying to hack through an industrial-proof firewall when they can just send an email to a human sitting behind that firewall?
“Understand that you are the weakness. If you understand your position in the cybercrime spectrum and how a criminal can attack you, you can design your security using the security tools out there.” — Brett Johnson, Chief Criminal Officer, Arkose Labs
People’s perceptions of the truth can be manipulated in order to drive them toward a specific goal. It doesn’t matter what the facts are; it matters what someone can be convinced of. The weakness is always the individual.
How Web3 and Mass Adoption Can Fight Back
Security is critical, but for a criminal to victimize you or your organization, they must establish trust. Instead of relying on people to do what they should to protect themselves, the development of Web3 and a blockchain internet can remove the need for “trust” in areas where human judgment is often the weakest link.
