Newbie provides assurance for blockchain-based privacy services to be demo’d at MWC19.
Blockchain company Rivetz and Telefónica’s ElevenPaths cybersecurity unit announced that Wanchain had joined the partnership they formed in 2017 to help with privacy protection for individuals and enterprise customers.
The original two explored ways of combining blockchain with ElevenPaths’ SIM-based encryption, to create a decentralised cybersecurity model based on two “isolated roots of trust”. From this they developed a hardware-based security tool called the Dual Roots of Trust that they showed at MWC Americas last September.
Scalable protection
The tool encrypts private keys and messages for blockchain, cloud, and Internet of Things services, by combining blockchain technology with two other technologies that are in everyday use — the Trusted Execution Environment (TEE), which is network-based, and the Security Identity Module (SIM) found in devices.
This means that even if one mechanism is breached, a hacker would have to break the second to get the key. This is important for individuals but also to companies, whose employees carry increasing amounts of sensitive data on phones and tablets. If a device is lost or stolen, or an employee leaves a company, that firm can disable all the work-related apps.
The two say the system could be used to protect billions of devices around the globe.
Integrated assurance
Wanchain is expected to take things further and integrate Rivetz’s hardware-based protections to provide assurance that the recording of blockchain transactions and data happen as intended. This development will be demonstrated at MWC19 in Barcelona in February.
Pedro Perez, Telefonica’s head of security and CEO of ElevenPaths, said that the latest addition to the partnership will play a key role in the development of innovative core technology critical in the protection of “user identities, sensitive information, and digital assets”.