Blockchain Security and Threat Landscape
Joseph H. Holbrook · 2020
This chapter covers various aspects around blockchain security that were focused on best practices such as security audits and security scanning. A blockchain is a distributed ledger that in most cases should be immutable—that is, the information (transactions) that is written to the ledger cannot be modified or deleted. The chapter covers many of the vulnerabilities in the threat landscape that a blockchain network could be exposed to, including distributed denial-of-service attacks and 51% attacks. In Ethereum blockchains, all modifications to a smart contract's data must be performed by its blockchain code. Security is built into the blockchain code and the smart contract platform. The chapter reviews the blockchain-specific features for Ethereum, Hyperledger, Quorum, and Corda. Ethereum, Hyperledger, Corda, and Quorum all offer unique security and privacy features and capacity that should be considered in IT Administrator blockchain design and deployments.