The Human-side of Emerging Technologies and Cyber Risk: A case analysis of blockchain across different verticals

Blockchain, or distributed ledger, continues to be deployed in the healthcare, energy, manufacturing, financial services sectors, and retail. Blockchain advocates argue that this technology constitutes a new architectural foundation for building trust based on its unique technological characteristics (Glaser 2017). However, cybersecurity is not a function of technological architecture but, in fact, is critically bound by human elements, processes, and actors. Therefore, all emerging technologies have cyber risk. Given the disruptive nature of this technology, there is a strong business need to understand cyber risk associated with blockchain. With this in mind, this investigation posed the following research questions: What are the risks associated with blockchain? Can a risk-based approach be validated or extended by exploring cases of blockchain deployment and highlighting risk? Multiple qualitative methods were used to analyze the data and to identify trends. This analysis identified cyber risk, in the context of blockchain, using the simple and generally accepted definition of cyber security as confidentiality, integrity, and availability (CIA). Based on the results, a cyber-physical risk-based approach was developed and blockchain deployment was examined in specific cases to identify and analyze the breaches according to this framework. The results demonstrate that beyond technological and data architecture there a strong need to further identify and analyze the cybercriminal actors and behavior in order to address cyber risk.