The Role of Blockchain in Underpinning Mission Critical Infrastructure

Abstract

There is a fast-growing desire to look at the technology of blockchain as a method to enhance and further protect mission critical data in large-scale critical national infrastructure (CNI) such as healthcare organisations, ICS and SCADA systems used for key industrial processes. During recent years the level of cyberattacks and attack formations has progressed from `script kiddies' to crime-for-hire (such as ransomware-as-a-service and malware-as-a-service) and more sophisticated attacks designed to take down a whole network infrastructure such as WannaCry ransomware attack in 2017 or the Ukraine 2015 cyberattack shutting down the power grid. Blockchain offers a decentralised method, essentially a trustless environment to store sensitive related data where it can remain private but accessible to where authorised.