Cybersecurity Assessment and Authorization of Blockchain Systems

The GBA Cybersecurity Working Group has just published a ground-breaking report that discusses how blockchain systems can pass the rigorous security requirements to be installed in a government environment.  What makes this so challenging is that the cybersecurity paradigm that forms the basis of traditional government requirements is vastly different than the fundamental principles of blockchain technology.  However, this reports describes how blockchain systems and applications can align with FISMA requirements and NIST frameworks.

The report, “Assessment and Authorization of Blockchain Systems” can be downloaded from the www.GBAglobal.org website.

The GBA is a 501(c)6 nonprofit organization of thousands of government and industry professionals in over 80 GBA Chapters around the world including Washington, New York, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Hawaii, London, Paris, Moscow, Rome, Dubai, Beijing, Tokyo, Cameroon, and many others.  These professionals work in dozens of GBA Working Groups towards a common goal defined in the GBA Ethics Statement.

Ethics Statement

We understand that any global advocacy association will need to reflect viewpoints and positions from many varied perspectives.  Yet, technology like any inanimate object, is neutral with regard to human motivations.  Therefore, the following tenants will guide GBA leadership and its members as we engage public policy makers, influencers and citizens at large:

1. Technology is a resource that can and should be used for good, on behalf of citizens across the world.
2. The resultant uses of technology such as blockchain and related innovations should be to improve quality of life of citizens.
3. Governments, civil servants, and laws are instituted by citizens and nations to serve and protect, not to suppress or hinder the free and positive pursuits of the governed.
4. The inalienable rights and dignity enjoyed by citizens shall not be unduly suppressed by the authority of governments as they carry out their mandated roles and responsibilities.
5. GBA will only pursue goals that serve to form a more perfect union between and among governments and the citizens they serve, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense of citizen’s rights and welfare and secure the blessings of liberty in a free society.

For more information, please contact the Working Group leader, Ajay Chandhok.