Intelligent CIO Europe Issue 02 | Page 59

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// FEATURE: BLOCKCHAIN Securing Blockchain with Privileged Access Management Blockchain is frequently becoming more utilised among businesses and companies need to get to terms with what it is and how to use it. Intelligent CIO talks to BeyondTrust’s Morey Haber to hear his views on the steps we should be taking to secure our use of blockchain. www.intelligentcio.com T he level of hype around bitcoin, blockchain and cryptocurrency is absolutely amazing. When you hear an Uber driver talking about it, or your local news carries a piece on how a family paid for their daughter’s wedding with bitcoin, then you know that the hype is out of control. If you know anything about these technologies, excellent; you are ahead of the curve. Hopefully you have not realised too late that they actually have a limited place in business and need to be secured just like any other application; albeit with some curious twists. What is blockchain? What is not. A blockchain is an electronic ledger system that is distributed with copies residing on multiple nodes. Blockchains are not a database replacement, nor will future applications be that utilise them. They are a ledger system that secures entries based on work and verification. Natively, blockchain can only process a limited number of transactions per second and cannot store complex records or blobs – only ledger-style information that has a finite start date, like shipping information or inception and process dates. INTELLIGENTCIO 59