Professor at MIT “Blockchain technology is not as secure as its reputation”

Stuart Madnick, a professor at MIT’s College of Engineering, pointed out that blockchain technology is not as secure as its reputation.

In an editorial posted in the Wall Street Journal, he emphasized planned research on blockchain technology and said it was not as secure as many argue. MIT devised a classification method for vulnerabilities by investigating and analyzing 72 publicly reported security breaches related to blockchain systems between 2011 and 2018. Among the major vulnerabilities, this survey cited transparency, distributed control, and anonymity, which are the advantages of blockchain technology.

In the case of transparency, Madnick says, even if people can see the software and make sure it’s free of flaws, it’s a factor that makes it easy for a malicious person to access and discover less well-known flaws. Distributed control also means that the on-off switch like the existing centralized system does not exist concentrated in a specific place. He pointed out that a central exchange could close the market, taking for example the stock market, which faces problems such as short periods of time and sharp price drops, where large orders and fast transactions occur. On the other hand, it is impossible to cancel attacks found in blockchain networks or systems.

Anonymity also stressed that it is impossible for users to recover access to their blockchain accounts if their private keys are lost. The private key is the only way to identify a user, and because it is anonymous, it is popular in illegal transactions such as ransomware that demands ransom money.

He pointed out that while blockchain technology and encryption represent the advancement of security, blockchain technology also has the same vulnerabilities as other technologies.In fact, he pointed out that human behavior or laziness still seriously affects the security of blockchain technology. Related information can be found here .