Blockchain and the Mining Industry

The mining industry is the most troubled by the cyber attacks. There are a few examples of the mining industry falling prey to security breaches.

1. Detour Gold networks were most affected as the 100GB worth of data was stolen.

2. 18 GB of compromised documents were shared on a torrent site.

3. And, mining industry stands at the top among many industries when it comes to receiving spam emails.

About one in four industry emails will have a virus. Thus, it is clear from these reports that mining is at greater risk than other fields. As a matter of fact, security is the major concern that will impact mining in the future. The blog shed light on what can Blockchain do for mining.

What is Blockchain?

The Blockchain is a revolutionary technology that creates and maintains a continuously growing list of records, called blocks, and secures these records from tampering.

How Blockchain Enhances and Streamlines The Mining Sector?

Security

A report by security firm Trend Micro reveals that 22 mining organizations have fallen victim to major cyber-attacks since 2010. These attacks were intended to steal intellectual property and other proprietary information, which can cause damage to a company. Blockchain is used with mining products such as gold. A tiny QR code imprinted on the product links to a digital token (Stored on a blockchain) for verifying its quality, ethical extraction, and authenticity. This helps in reducing fraud, theft, and related insurance costs. It also gives a much more robust and transparent end-to-end view of the custody of mining products. It keeps a record of every material and safely encrypts the information of goods without any involvement of third-party entities. Thereby, saving the information from any kind of attack.

Increased Transparency

Also, this transforming technology can be used in much more complex supply chains of goods. This technology can trace and track materials from the moment of their extraction to the point of selling. It presents a complete picture of the supply chain in real time. Therefore, it satisfies customers increased demands for transparency and more environmentally sound goods.

The blockchain record enables you to trace ownership along with the particular geographic location of the ore beneath the earth’s surface. It can link to a physical tag that is able to detect if the ore body is moved or mixed up. Then, this information is conveyed to a third-party vendor on the blockchain network that will inform the ore’s owners or even law enforcement.

In a nutshell, blockchain impacts the mining industry by securing the origin of raw materials and creating a liquid marketplace for unmined ore. In fact, when combined with other innovations in the field of IoT and trade finance, the possibilities with Blockchain will increase.