Distributed ledger technology – commonly referred as Blockchain – has emerged as candidate for financial institutions to reform their businesses. The speed and cost of doing business using distributed ledger technology is expected to improve by simplifying back-office operations and lowering the need for human intervention. However, a number of security concerns around this new technology remains.
In this respect the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA) has published a new report on “Distributed Ledger Technology & Cybersecurity - Improving information security in the financial sector”.
This paper aims to provide financial professionals in both business and technology roles with an assessment of the various benefits and challenges that their institutions may encounter when implementing a distributed ledger. Some of the key challenges of Blockchain identified in the document are:
Traditional challenges such as:
- Key Management
- Privacy
- Code Review
Technology specific challenges such as:
- Key Generation
- Smart Contract Management
- Scalability
ENISA has also included good practices to overcome the issues identified as well as introduce the key concepts that decision-makers should be aware of when approaching this technology.
The report is available for download here.
Source: European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA), 2016
Interesting insight on the Blockchain technology could be found in the article by Ivo Emanuilov - ‘‘‘Taking Back Control Of Our Data’: Block(chain)ing Privacy published in our blog LIBRe Stories.