The world’s first Automated Decentralized App Scanner (DAppScanner™) #AiSecureMe #DAppScanner
By: Alexander Reay
Tags: Blockchain, Smart Contracts, Cybersecurity, Hacking

The world is transitioning and rapidly moving into a new way of working, a digital way of life and along with it, our personal and sometimes sensitive data. In response new regulatory compliance surrounding that data is catalyzing businesses of all sizes to frantically implement more secure programs to safeguard and protect that data. Unfortunately, despite these new regulations, it doesn't slow down the stampede of cyber criminals trying to steal it. Data is the new money after all.

One of the main attack surfaces, often the cause of these breaches, is vulnerable applications, that either get exploited or leak our personal information. Yet despite our best efforts to patch these, as fast as these vulnerabilities are found and rectified, another steps into the limelight, a constant threat.

“From a security perspective, the architecture of traditional applications and the internet as we know it, is very broken.”

In response, technologists have started to utilize more secure technologies and protocols, such as Blockchain/DLT and to be specific shift to developing Decentralized Applications (DApps). These DApps are stored on a Distributed Ledger or file system that connects to (hopefully :) a decentralized public blockchain, that perform transactions among its users governed and verified using Smart Contracts.

For the sake of this article, we look to compare the key differences in Web vs DApp, and how each measure up when dealing with known and unknown vulnerabilities.

Let us start by defining each:

Web Applications: Although there are some exceptions, we will define a traditional web application running on a centralized network, where a repository of code or a program is accessible over the world wide web, using a browser of choice.

Decentralized Applications: Called DApps for short, they may not look any different from the client point of view to a web application. However, they are generally stored and executed with the server side program or code running on a decentralized network, such as NEO, Ethereum or EOS. Records are stored on the blockchain or a distributed ledger.

Vulnerabilities in Blockchain and DApps

Whilst Blockchain is widely touted as a game changer in the application domain, and mostly utilized to disrupt the Finance industry, it is still in very nascent stages. Looking at its adoption and evolution, first we saw, Blockchain 1.0 , which almost exclusively served crypto currency. In turn it gave rise to Blockchain 2.0, ie Ethereum. An open and decentralized platform enabling a new paradigm of computing.

From a security perspective the two differ, the semantics and complexity of DApps have added new attack surfaces and security vulnerabilities that are not widely present in pure crypto systems such as Bitcoin. Furthermore, since still in its infancy and relatively new, it is paramount to have a systematic and comprehensive understanding when it comes to security from a holistic view, with clearly defined best practices and standards, which is still somewhat immature.

To shed some light, and draw some insight into DApp security best practices let us analyze and compare the different vulnerabilities and how to defend against them.

The Top Ten

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