Who can forget the meteoric rise of Bitcoin from $1000 in January 2017 to an unprecedented $20,000 by December the same year?
While Bitcoin’s eye-popping price action has been hogging the limelight, all cryptocurrencies have been going through some growing pains when it comes to security. Until now, smart contracts, tokenomics, and transaction speeds have taken the lion’s share of developers’ attention.
Over the past 12 months, developers have finally started to focus on security and open source communities have taken up the mantle to help legitimize cryptocurrencies and drive adoption. But where does the cyber-security community stand on this technology? So far it has seemingly been silent and indifferent.
With executives and experts from a range of industries flocking to blockchain projects worldwide, it’s time for the security industry to join the conversation. We’ll include discussion of centralized exchange hacks, the evolution of ransomware, dark web marketplace dynamics and more.
Effective inclusion of cyber-security is crucial to help steer the worldwide adoption of this technology. We’ll delve into case studies around the strengths and weaknesses of blockchain technology from a cyber-security point of view. Where does our expertise come into play? How should we adapt our understanding of cyber threats with our understanding of blockchain? Do we need to intervene at all?
It’s important to understand how the new approaches currently being developed by leading security organizations (detection and response / purple-teaming) can be applied to a breach when blockchain is involved. Furthermore, will consideration of blockchain technology affect these approaches? And if so, where will this lead to in terms of future research areas?
Key takeaways will include:
As a world-leading hub for blockchain and cybersecurity, I can think of no better place to get the conversation started than HITB Dubai.
