Anti -Virus Expert "Kaspersky Laboratory" talks about blockchain

And offers to go through a test!

Medusa asked in detail the viral analyst of Kaspersky Laboratory Alexei Malanov - about what he thinks about blockchain. And she asked to make a blockchain test - if you are confident in your abilities, then scrap the article to the end and try to play it.

Part of my work is to develop “threat models”. For example, there is a chance that in ten years many people will walk with augmented reality glasses. So, you need to understand now what it threatens users. Can an attacker gain access to your points and, for example, draw a pedestrian crossing where he really is not? Or replace the traffic light from red to green?

Or take, for example, voice assistants (we have a wonderful post about what they are dangerous ). My favorite story-as once on American television, the girl said: “Alex, order me a puppet house”-and the smart column Alexa pushed the houses in the online stores. But it can be asked to open the front door, a led to the window, if your house is already “smart” in your house. Therefore, in the “Kaspersky Laboratory” we analyze the devices of the Internet of things, pull out the code, find vulnerability, reply for the manufacturer, write articles (both generalizing and about specific vulnerable coffee machines ).

All this year was accompanied by hackles and thefts associated with ICO. In one week in July there were three large cases at once. Some attackers banally replaced the address on the site where to send money, having collected more than $ 7 million on a wallet in an hour. Others, due to error in the wallet with a multi-signature, stole $ 30 million. Still others, using the target attack, stole $ 8.4 million from the ICO-startup Veritaseum. My task is to understand what happened in each case. And it is advisable to propose some kind of concept of defense, to warn the next attack.

Despite the fact that the blockchain technology in 2017 gained incredible popularity, experts of Kaspersky Laboratory did not talk much about it. Therefore, we decided to fix it.

Why I love work in Kaspersky Laboratory . Reason No. 1: My work is useful and important. Just a few years ago, it was simply useful: we defended the user’s passwords, his bank accounts, photos and private life. But in recent years, the work has also become very important: we protect power plants (including atomic ones), oil pipelines, airports, and even ordinary traffic lights - all this is controlled by computers, is at risk, attacks. Human lives depend on their uninterrupted work. To join the Kaspersky Lab team, you can respond to one of the vacancies here .

How the blockchain works

The general meaning of the blockchain is this: all participants fill out a large diary, write who handed over how much money to whom. It is designed in the form of a chain of consecutive messages - blocks - and attach them one after another. Each participant in the network stores the entire chain of these very blocks, and new ones are added only to the end. So that all the participants in the network finish the same block at the end, and not everyone, they need to somehow choose one lucky man and instruct him to add a record to him. In the case of the most famous cryptocurrency - bitcoin - the lucky one selects about once every 10 minutes (as the algorithm is programmed). You can choose it in different ways, but more often the new block in the chain will be able to write down the one who will do this first. And there are more chances to win those who spend more computing resources on the solution - and, therefore, more electricity.

For a winning in such a lottery, a reward is supposed to be 12.5 bitcoin, this is also programmed in the network rules. As soon as the new block is completed, the chain of blocks from this participant becomes the longest and is taken by others for the only true one. The award motivates the participants to take on new blocks, and it is thanks to it that new bitcoins appear in the world, this process is called mining - that is, cryptocurrency mining. The design of the block has strict rules, so it cannot be simply taken and rewritten: the longest and most complex chain becomes the only true, and the rest of the options are discarded. And if the “bad guy” wants to rewrite the tail of the blockchain and regain recently spent money, then he will have to spend more energy on the production of the block than all the other miners combined. That is, while under the control of the "bad guy" less than half of all miner capacities, the blockchain cannot be rewritten.

Why I love work in Kaspersky Laboratory . Reason No. 2: I work in a company known throughout the world. Imagine you are meeting with a classmate with whom you have not seen 10 years. He asks: "Where are you working?" When you answer him - in the "Kaspersky Laboratory", he nods respectfully. And in the world, the brand recognition is very high, and the perception is positive, in spite of any news. But in China, everyone knows “Kabasiji”-this is how “Kaspersky” sounds in Chinese. ”

What is a good blockchain

Blockchain is good because most cryptocurrencies are based on. But he has other advantages. For example, he is unclosed and resistant to attacks. Since each participant stores all the information about the entire network, then turning off or attack on any of them does not lead to anything bad. For example, in bitcoin nodes containing all the information from the blockchain, ten thousand. The remaining users are connected to these nodes when they want to make translations.

The blockchain is validable - and this is another advantage. This means that everything is done in it in accordance with pre -fixed rules - the debit is always converged with a loan. Most of modern systems check the correctness of information during recording, but in theory they can be hacked and corrected later.

And the blockchain is affordable. Everyone can connect and participate, read what happened earlier, send something new-unlike other modern systems closed to observers.

Why I love work in Kaspersky Laboratory . Reason No. 3: I can ride Ferrari - also at work. Kaspersky Laboratory is a long -standing partner of Ferrari. We are engaged in the company's cyber protection, and sometimes it gives us the opportunity to ride real racing cars on a real racing track, driving. In November, there was another such event in Dubai, and then looked at the Formula 1 races in Abu Dhabi.

What is bad blockchain

But there are drawbacks. First of all, blockchain is slow. All participants need to “agree”, choose a miner that will add a new block, come to the consensus. For example, Bitcoin and ether has through the throughput of three-seven transactions per second for the whole world. For comparison: Facebook sets one hundred thousand likes per second.

Another blockchain problem is that it is not scale. That is, if you double the amount of the “iron” serving it, then the throughput will remain exactly at the same level. In centralized systems, as a rule, you want to work twice as fast - just go and bell the same number of equipment.

Well, what bothers me the most personally: the vast majority of public blockchains (cryptocurrencies) are now choosing a lucky one when forming a block on the principle of "who burned more electricity is well done." As a result, Bitcoin alone consumes electricity as much as Morocco, Azerbaijan or Ecuador. Moreover, if the price of bitcoin doubles, electricity consumption will also gradually double, and this gives the forecasts disappointing for the ecology.

Why I love work in Kaspersky Laboratory . Reason No. 4: I can express myself not only in professional terms. “ Kaspersky Laboratory is constantly holding competitions for the best photo, supports football and basketball teams. Last year, ours became Russian basketball champions among corporate teams. And at corporate parties, which take place twice a year, to the headliners (for example, Spleen, Leningrad, Zemfira, etc.), several groups of employees are usually performed (they still conduct their rock festival separately). Prior to this, employees show theatrical and musical numbers. Moreover, they are prepared with professional directors, choreographers and vocal teachers.

An incredible excitement rose around the blockchain, and they try to use this word everywhere, just to show that they are in the topic. There are many projects where the blockchain is completely useless, but it is “pushed” by force, just to attract attention and make money. For example, according to this logic, strange projects like conditional “EGAIS on the blockchain” or “Rosreestr on the blockchain” arise. Their problem is that the authors of the projects do not go from the goal, but from the fashionable tool. If the customer wants the data in the register to be open to the entire Internet, so that everyone can check their correctness, it is not necessary to screw decentralization for this. But often the system is first transferred to the blockchain (or simply declared intentions), then they begin to evaluate its advantages and disadvantages.

People think that the blockchain provides the genueness of data and protects against all fraud. This is only part of the truth. Suppose we write a register of real estate in the blockchain: the owners are changing at the apartment, and they are recorded in the register. But at the same time, the ability to rewrite the apartment to the fraudster does not go anywhere, because the function “set the new owner” is the standard possibility of a blockchain system. Of course, it cannot be corrected in hindsight, but this property of the system is easy to make without blockchain, but with a simpleralgorithm for control of integrity .

There is still an opinion that blockchain will help get rid of intermediaries and banks or, for example, will allow the government to automate. But most intermediaries receive their own commission for communicating with the manufacturer, buy wholesale, carry, work for the good of the consumer. So, if you connect directly to manufacturers and retail buyers using a blockchain, the world will not become better - some of the useful services will simply disappear.

Why I love work in Kaspersky Laboratory . Reason No. 5: The company cares about comfort in the office. Although massage in the office is only a week. A machine gun with free coffee only on the ground floor, and only ten types of drinks, and in the automatic machines in the patio on each floor there is even less choice. Timbilding is only once a quarter. Tea of ​​only five types of choice. I do not eat cookies-lobes-peaks, because on the diet. In general, the Kaspersky Laboiste makes it possible not to burn.

Blockchain in Kaspersky Laboratory

The Kaspersky Laboratory has a business incubator that analyzes projects using different technologies, including blockchain. One of these projects is the Polys electronic voting platform. Voting is just the area in which openness, resistance to attacks and transparency of calculations are especially important. Blockchain is suitable for all this. The idea itself is not new, but in Polys, unlike other projects, during the vote it is not visible who wins - because it greatly affects its results. But at the end of the elections in Polys, everyone can count the voices, but at the same time it will not know who specifically voted for whom.

And now we will check if you understand well what blockchain is