Blockchain is What Everybody’s Talking About — So How Can You Learn More?
By Alex Batty, MHI Marketing Communications Coordinator |@mhi_alex
Blockchain has become a pretty big buzzword lately. And while buzzwords tend to be overdrawn and overhyped, there is always a core reason that they become buzzwords. And the reason for blockchain’s buzz? Security.
Security is not a new problem. For as long as we’ve wanted to protect things, there have been people who want to take them. But in the digital age, people no longer have to even be on-site to steal things from you — and your customers.
And it’s an issue that keeps popping up. For all the encryption and security that people create, hackers can usually find a way around it. For example, the New York Times recently reported that a security research found sensitive corporate documents from multiple major automakers on the unprotected, open internet.
Not only were proprietary documents like blueprints and factory schematics exposed, but client documents such as contracts and NDAs were just sitting there, waiting to be viewed.
It’s becoming enough of an issue that the National Counterintelligence and Security Center issued an update to their 2011 report Foreign Spies Stealing U.S. Economic Secrets in Cyberspace. The update, titled Foreign Economic Espionage in Cyberspace, points out that as NextGen technologies like AI, IoT, and other cloud-networked infrastructures become the global norm, they present “potential vulnerabilities for which the cybersecurity community remains largely unprepared.”
One major vulnerability that hackers are already targeting? Software supply chain. Just as we have physical supply chains that connect materials through the different stages of the manufacturing/selling process, the software that manages all the information creates its own chain. And that needs its own sort of security.
Which brings us circling back around to blockchain. Blockchain is proposed to solve many of these security problems by creating and unbreakable document chain. I’ve written a post on it before explaining the basics, but to learn that I watched a TED Talk on YouTube from Richie Etwaru, who’s considered one of the foremost leading experts on the technology. So he’s got some authority on the topic.
And guess what — he’s coming to the Annual Conference to present multiple sessions on what blockchain means for the supply chain industry, including an interactive workshop.
Blockchain is a buzzword, but it’s a buzzword for a reason. It’s becoming the future. And you’ll want to learn about it from the guy who is leading the charge. You can register today to attend the Annual Conference at mhi.org/conference.
Will you be ready for what’s next?
