BUGLAB - For Better Cybersecurity
The field I find most intriguing in computer science is cybersecurity. As an engineering student in the computer science domain, studying about concepts like cryptography, network security, cyber forensics and many others in the field of cybersecurity got me more interested than any other domain. It is a pretty hot domain too, since there is always going to be threats of being attacked. Why? Because as much as developments in technology can be used to do good for the people, it can just as much be used to crack security measures that are set up to protect important and sensitive data. This sensitive data can be anything, from our own personal data to something of national importance like missile launch codes. If this kind of information came into the wrong hands, there is no telling the extent of damage they can cause for us. This is why all enterprises assign a reasonably large amount of resources devoted to setting up and maintaining cybersecurity measures and protocols.
One of the main processes involved in the cybersecurity department is penetration testing. Basically, companies pay who we call "hackers" to try and penetrate into their system which has been secured by various mechanisms. If they are unable to crack the code, their security system is considered a success. Otherwise, they analyse where they went wrong and improve the system. I honestly feel that this is the most important part of a cybersecurity system because it is the closest to a real-time environment with external attacks on the system and so we get to see how our system performs in compromised situations.
Obviously this procedure costs a lot of money, time and other resources. The people who are hired to carry out penetration testing have to be as talented and knowledgeable as any outside black hat hacker would be, or else there is no point. They also need to be given the necessary resources, like the highest available computational power, so that they can test the system in all conditions, and that would be expensive. And even after all of this, we still hear about cyber-attacks and data leaks in several companies, increasing year by year. As a result, all these resources spent becomes pointless, or in fact, leads to huge losses for the company. I feel that it has to be possible to automate penetration testing, or build some kind of system that carries out the process with as much reliability and efficiency as possible.
Blockchain technology, being another new development in the field of cybersecurity, caught my attention, and so I have been reading a lot about it. I have come across many projects and start-ups that use blockchain technology for various purposes. That's when I read about Buglab -- an application for penetration testing on the Ethereum blockchain.
What is it?
Buglab basically connects many security experts on a single platform that is powered by blockchain technology. It has two basic components -- the Buglab contest that brings together certified cybersecurity penetration testing experts in an incentivized, competing environment which generates massive contributions to the client, and the Vigilante protocol for whitehats (ethical hackers) to publish their own findings of vulnerabilities and accordingly notify enterprises that are currently facing risks because of those vulnerabilities. The system is reliable because everything is verified through blockchains and smart contracts.
The BGL token is the utility token used on the platform for carrying out any and all kinds of transactions on the platform. It is also a form of investment for the common public, as long as the product is successful. I feel that it will be, because it is a very useful and scalable product that solves an important problem pertaining to the current era. I am pretty sure I'm not the only one who gets spooked by news about cyber-attacks and data leaks, especially now that everything is online and so everything is vulnerable to attacks.
Conclusion
Buglab's platform may not seem to be useful to us as common people who don't really know much about cybersecurity and how it works. But it affects us just as much as it affects the enterprises who need and use these services, atleast indirectly. Because the data they store is ours, and the money they lose is actually ours. So it is important that this project becomes a big success, and I feel that they will be.
For more information
Website - https://buglab.io/
Whitepaper - https://buglab.io/assets/docs/Buglab_WhitePaper.pdf
ANN - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2851719
Telegram - https://buglab.io/assets/docs/Buglab_WhitePaper.pdf
Published by - jessicalaurenbt
Btalk profile - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1936052