Advantages of blockchain in the context of PKI and IAM

Blockchain-based solutions do not require any specialized standards to operate with data on the blockchain – they only require software that allows them to interact with the chain. This enables IT systems to verify certificates with APIs for interaction with the blockchain and ensures interoperability with all platforms (server, desktop or mobile). Further advantages of blockchain in the context of PKI and IAM include the following:

• Transparency. All participants on the blockchain will have access to the logic of the smart contract, providing transparency as to what is being agreed in the digital contract. Transactions are also recorded to provide a clear audit trail.
• Integrity. Records are reconciled against each other to ensure that no unauthorized changes are being made.
• Durability. As records are not controlled by particular nodes alone, there is no single point of failure in the entire blockchain network. This makes a blockchain network more durable and robust.
• Resource reduction. With blockchain and smart contracts acting as middlemen or agents, resources and time taken for transactions can be reduced. This is especially so in the case of smart contracts in which predefined conditions are agreed upon, and a self-executing process takes place once these conditions are met.
• Eliminating errors. With all nodes on the network processing transactions individually, updating and reconciling the records, errors in calculations can be omitted.

Improved fault-tolerance and DDoS resistance. One of the features blockchain offers is the mitigation of denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks risks. This is done by offloading the throughput pressure among all the nodes in the network. An app developer, that utilizes the blockchain approach, is able to host an independent node to serve their users or, depending on the case, just use any publicly available node.

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