IBM is researching new cloud-based blockchain security services to provide data security protection for enterprise blockchain projects

IBM today announced a new service designed to help enterprises test and run blockchain projects that need to process private or sensitive data.

The new service, called IBM’s ‘Secure Blockchain Cloud Environment,’ is an integration of IBM’s existing blockchain cloud offering and IBM LinuxONE, a Linux server designed to prevent what the company believes may be ‘backdoors’ in other cloud-based blockchain networks.

All in all, IBM is positioning this new product as seeking to improve the security of private enterprise-level blockchain projects running in the cloud, primarily by securing entry points and combating insider threats.

Recently elected IBM Fellow Donna Dillenberger explains how this cloud environment can help protect the valuable data that companies track on blockchain when it enters an IBM LinuxOne server.

“The cloud is made up of special hardware that is responsible for protecting the blockchain from hackers and preventing someone with malicious intent from compromising the root user or system administrator credentials,” Dillenberg said.

By using this secure network, blockchain software applications built on the IBM Blockchain can be signed, encrypted and authenticated so that malicious software cannot install itself or install client applications.

IBM said the product is currently in a limited beta test phase and is intended to provide enterprises with a secure platform to test proof of concepts and the performance of final products.

This secure network also includes additional features that are designed to help meet the security requirements of the financial industry, medical industry and government sectors and to meet regulatory compliance requirements.

Protecting Diamond Data

Also announced today, blockchain startup Everledger is using the secure network to power their global certification system, which is able to track items, such as diamonds and artworks, through the supply chain.

Everledger’s integration with this secure network is designed to protect suppliers, buyers and shippers from theft or counterfeiting of valuable assets.

Everledger CEO and founder Leanne Kemp said that while her company had not experienced a direct attack or "any external threat" since its founding last year, the move to work with IBM to ensure security was a preemptive measure.

For example, last October, the Gemological Institute Gemological Institute of America America declared grading reports for 1,042 diamonds invalid because hackers had breached its database and altered the gemstones’ descriptions, including their color and transparency.

Kemp said this attack is just the beginning of cyber threats facing various industries in the future as more information is stored in high-performance distributed databases.

Kemp concluded: “Some of the startups working on this industry are too worried about the flashy side of blockchain. But this is a very serious technology and needs to be taken very seriously.”