Developers of EOSIO, an initiative supported by Block.one, a Cayman Islands-registered open-source software development firm with $4 billion in total funding (to date), have published a blog post, noting they’ve carefully looked into improving smart contract security on EOS.
According to EOSIO’s blog, published on April 11th, FireWall.X provides an effective set of tools for “protecting smart contracts built” on EOS from “malicious hacks.” As explained by Zhong Qifu, a product manager at SlowMist Technology Co., the firm that developed FireWall.X, the “world’s first firewall” system for smart contracts aims to ensure the security of all EOS-based decentralized applications (dApps).
Preventing Unauthorized Access To Smart Contracts
In an interview with EOSIO’s management, Qifu noted that FireWall.X works in a manner that is “similar to traditional firewalls for operating systems which control network traffic.” He added that FireWall.X has the ability to “execute control over inline actions” while “preventing unauthorized access” to EOS-based smart contracts.
Developed in “combination with oracle technology,” the FireWall.X program helps in “preventing hackers from obtaining” user account details which may be stored in smart contracts. In order to add protection against hacks on EOS, developers must import FireWall.X’s smart contract security code libraries into the code they’re writing.
After the smart contract security code has been integrated, developers can publish software that’s “more resistant” against cyberattacks – all “at zero cost.”
SlowMist: Experienced Mainly In Cybersecurity Technology
Commenting on how the crybersecurity firm first began developing open-source blockchain security software, Qifu remarked:
In the latter half of 2018, [SlowMist Technology] conducted some research into the many different ways one could carry out smart contract hacks, and discovered some of the major pain points and challenges surrounding the safety precautions of smart contracts. Following one of our many brainstorming sessions, a cybersecurity researcher on our team proposed the idea of FireWall.X, which naturally led us to the creation of this project. Our team’s expertise also lies mainly in cybersecurity technology, which is why we chose to focus on this aspect in the first place.
According to Qifu, some of the main and “fully functioning” features of FireWall.X include “malicious account screening, blacklist and whitelist management, statistical analysis, activity logging, [and] malicious transfer detection.”
These features are accessible via “a user-friendly platform for developers” and SlowMist will reportedly be launching “a real-time statistical panel, [and] risk management” tools, including an “off-chain analysis tool.” The main objective of introducing these products is to “block off attacks in a timely manner, thus reducing the financial loss of users,” EOSIO’s blog stated.
