Bitcoin Association North America Manager Bryan Daugherty has been appointed as a subject matter expert (SME) to the Cybersecurity and Information Systems Information Analysis Centre (CSIAC).
CSIAC is a component of the United States Department of Defence (DOD)’s Information Analysis Centre (IAC) enterprise, serving the defence enterprise of the DOD and federal government users, as well as their supporting partners in industry and academia.
The centre focuses on providing information systems-related research and analysis to the US federal government across four key areas – cybersecurity, knowledge management and information sharing, modelling and simulation, and software data and analysis. It relies on its wide assortment of subject matter experts to provide in-depth analysis related to these areas, which is then used to create specialised technical information products.
Daugherty is a blockchain and cybersecurity expert with an impressive 20-year background in digital transformation technologies, where he has worked with businesses of all sizes to deliver efficiencies, security and cost savings. In his role as the North America Regional Manager at Bitcoin Association, he has engaged in business outreach and education around the applicability of the BSV blockchain to various industries and across myriad sectors, from delivering cost efficiencies to enterprises to offering improved cybersecurity to government initiatives.
As a newly appointed SME to CSIAC, Daugherty brings extensive knowledge about cybersecurity and blockchain to the consideration of the US federal government. In this role, he will have the opportunity to provide input and analysis around the ramifications of blockchain technology for global cybersecurity.
Bitcoin Association spoke to Daugherty about his appointment and his commitment to improving cybersecurity through furthering the adoption of services built on the BSV blockchain – the world’s first infinitely scalable enterprise blockchain adherent to the original Bitcoin protocol.
Bringing BSV innovation to government
Daugherty is excited to contribute to the adoption of innovative technology by government entities in his role as an SME at CSIAC, noting that the current state of public-private partnerships does not encourage the participation of small, innovative players that are able to deliver on a proposal’s requirements.
‘I’m super excited to contribute. The procurement of technologies into government is very difficult today because it’s a legacy type of concept where the biggest technology players in the world pretty much have all of the play,’ he says.
‘Because of [this appointment], I was able to apply towards providing information, education and insight towards one of their initiatives, which is securing the Industrial Internet of Things, and IoT devices are transforming pretty much every part of our daily lives.’
Daugherty sees the potential in a field like this for the application of services and products built on the BSV blockchain and made competitive by the underlying infrastructure’s powerful capabilities as a data management platform and efficient transactional throughput.
‘[On BSV] you can efficiently trade and monetise data across the value chain and it’s sustainable, which is excellent as ESG is the biggest topic of the day lately – especially with all the government meetings that they’re having and the regulations that they’re sharing. When you start looking at being able to participate in these government programmes, now you’re giving them a direct channel to this education,’ Daugherty says.
‘What comes from this are real-life solutions like standards and ultimately changes. I’m hoping that being able to participate and share a lot of the information I’ve gained will be helped to shape and form the integration of sustainable blockchain technology like BSV.’
‘One of the cool things about being a subject matter expert for them is they really heavily rely on the expertise of this community to not just deliver technical presentations and articles, but to really participate in shaping some of these products that will come out and provide more secure consumer and business protection.’
Securing business and government with the BSV blockchain
Daugherty also touched on the recent mandate issued by the US federal government to fix every known cybersecurity vulnerability within two weeks, noting how a platform built on the BSV blockchain could enable this preservation of security to be completed far more efficiently and without the mistakes that will inevitably appear as a result of this expedited programme.
‘This is a serious request – I imagine there will be people staying up all night trying to do this. But when you’re thinking about vulnerability patches, that’s all it is – having some guy sit at a computer and update all this hardware that requires a patch update because it’s just been neglected for whatever reason,’ Daugherty says.
‘Even though this has always been mandated, now they have to do it right away. So, I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of issues that arise from hastily doing this. But again, it’s something that’s needed.’
‘The core problem is the infrastructure that we’re relying on to provide these type of patch updates is at its core faulted because we have to rely on trusted third parties and we don’t have this level of privacy and trust that we would with a blockchain-based solution. Imagine if you put that update within a transaction and now, they are almost guaranteeing the contents within there. But what happens is before I download it, I can ensure that none of that data has changed through Merkle proofs and utilising SPV and other functions.’
This assurance that a patch is authentic and can be safely downloaded is crucial to preventing further exploits, Daugherty says, and can be accomplished by simply providing an auditable trail of cybersecurity changes written to the immutable digital ledger provided by the BSV blockchain.
‘It really changes the dynamic not just for the one company, but overall, when blockchain starts to really solidify itself as the Metanet. You’ll start seeing that you do have way more granular control, you have more confidentiality, you have more integrity of your records, you have more availability of the data. And this facilitates not just efficiencies, but a lot of these data silos breaking down.’
Daugherty has identified and targeted inefficiencies and other issues in the United States’s process of engagement with the private sector on securing and delivering new, innovative technologies. In a paper he co-wrote that was published in December 2020, he stresses the capability of a public, secure blockchain like BSV to restore public trust in government processes and the enforcement of cybersecurity regulation.
Daugherty hopes that in his role as a subject matter expert for CSIAC, he will be able to contribute to changes in the US government RFP process that will cultivate innovation and more efficient solutions for enterprise cybersecurity and beyond.
If you are interested in finding out more about the BSV blockchain’s ability to revolutionise the cybersecurity industry and improve trust in government and security providers, these concepts are explained in great detail within Daugherty’s eBook, ‘The BSV blockchain as an enterprise cybersecurity framework’.