US technology giant IBM is working with industry participants such as BNY Mellon to create a “tamper-resistant” blockchain solution for the trade and transfer of assets.
The industry collaboration comes after IBM highlighted concerns around the security of blockchain, as an emerging technology, are holding back many participants from investing fully.
Suresh Kumar, chief information officer at BNY Mellon, commented: “At BNY Mellon, we are actively exploring blockchain’s potential to better serve our clients and our company.”
“With this new initiative, IBM is providing an environment that will allow companies like us to collaborate more easily and more securely and in a more standardised way, which is critical to advancing meaningful use cases for blockchain.”
In a brief on the blockchain initiative, IBM explained industry concerns: “Blockchain networks are built on the notion of decentralised control, but some cloud environments leave back doors open to vulnerabilities that allow tampering and unauthorised access.”
“Working with teams of security experts, cryptographers, hardware experts and researchers, IBM has created essential new cloud services for tamper-resistant, trusted blockchain networks.”
Jerry Cuomo, vice president for blockchain at IBM, said: "While there is a sense of urgency to pioneer blockchain for business, most organisations need help to define the ideal cloud environment that enables blockchain networks to run securely in the cloud."
Eiji Ueki, director and executive vice president of NTT DATA, an IBM client, added: "Blockchain is a highly innovative and promising technology. However, there are a lot of issues to be solved for enterprise systems."
"IBM’s new blockchain cloud service is directly trying to address those issues. We believe this will help accelerate the maturation of blockchain technology."
IBM revealed it is addressing these concerns directly by forging cloud services with the highest federal information processing standards (FIPS 140-2) and evaluation assurance levels in the industry to support the use of blockchain in government, financial services and healthcare.
It is also making it easier to use its code, based on the Linux Foundation Hyperledger Project, in any environment, and offering services on Bluemix, IBM’s cloud platform, to help developers quickly build applications.
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