Cybersecurity and the Future of Blockchain: Decentralized and Trustless

Sanjay Seth – Cybersecurity Consultant | Founder, P J Networks Pvt Ltd

I’m sat at my desk, third coffee in, having just returned from DefCon’s hardware hacking village – still riding that adrenaline rush. And I’ve been ruminating on something that’s been cropping up in conversations with CISOs, CTOs, and amusingly enough even non-tech execs, this interest in decentralization specifically with the use of a blockchain being a means in which to secure systems in a trustless manner. So let’s talk about that, yes.

Because the older models? They’re not doing it anymore.

The Failures of Centralized Security

I been in this game since ‘93. Back then, as a network admin, we were delighted if your LAN had a working file server and the PSTN mux didn’t fizzle out between calls and syncs. But it all was centralized. User 1: You shut down the server, game over. It was like taking all your secret sauce, putting in a pot, and handing the lid over to someone else.

And yes, we have scaled that model. Firewalls, DMZs, intrusion prevention, SIEM – layered solutions. But that basic architecture? Still centralized.

Here’s why that’s an issue now:

• A single point of failure. One compromise, and the attacker has it all.
• Implicit trust within corp networks. Remember when we took internal traffic all to be good? That doesn’t fly anymore.
• Admin overprivilege. I’ve witnessed junior IT people unintentionally takedown whole segments. Add in some spear phishing, and you’ve got a bomb just waiting to be detonated.
• Supply chain risks. SolarWinds, anyone?

We witnessed this in the days of the Slammer worm as well. One port (1434 UDP, for those who remember), underprotected – and boom, global chaos. And it was centralized assumptions that created that mess.

And here’s the upshot – cloud actually made this worse before it made it better. We moved from old local datacenters to hyperscalers, but retained all the same trust models, all the same administrative assumptions.

So what’s the alternative?

The Benefits of Blockchain’s Security and Decentralization

Now let’s pivot – this is where it gets fun. Blockchain is not just for crypto bros and NFT evangelists. At its most basic, it is a radical reimagining of trust and control.

You distribute verification across nodes instead of having one gatekeeper. You don’t trust your infrastructure, you cryptographically prove it. And that’s where the magic begins.

Why does blockchain help in cybersecurity?

• No single point of compromise – Decentralized control. Attackers need to infect multiple nodes, not just your core server.
• Immutable logging – What’s written is written. You attempt to meddle, it is clear. I cannot tell you how many attack traces we’ve lost through log manipulation.
• Trustless systems — No one has to take anyone’s word for anything, they simply verify.
• Smart contracts – Because access control should be baked into code, not just policies in a file sitting untouched for years.
• Insulation from insider attacks – One bad insider can’t alter the past with distributed consensus.

Quick Take:

For COOs or CISOs with 2 minutes to spare — here’s the deal. You’ve relied on firewalls and VPNs for too long. Attackers have outgrown that model. While trust assumptions are gone, it’s the decentralized security, enabled by a blockchain, that gives you real-time and verifiable security events that no one can tamper.

Do you want to tell me that’s not a game changer?

Case Studies

Here are a few stories — all real, names redacted.

1. 3 Banks’ Journey to Zero-Trust Transformation

Earlier this year I worked with three mid-sized Indian banks. They had branches in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, flat networks and trust was baked in.

• Transition to a zero-trust model that no longer depended on central permissions.
• Develop a blockchain identity verification system for internal applications.
• Place all admin actions on a private ledger. Tamper-proof, audit-ready.

One insider attack was literally stopped in its tracks because the ledger indicated real-time privilege escalation that hadn’t been authorized. We knew, froze the access and initiated an investigation in hours, not days.

2. V&V of Supply Chain for a Manufacturing Customer

This one’s niche, but cool. We’re referring to firmware for industrial routers and sensors. Updates were being spoofed.

• Commit hashes of sign firmware on Internal Blockchain.
• Hardware would only allow software with signatures already verified on-chain.

Guess what? After three months of increased security, spoof attempts had fallen to zero.

3. Secure Voting within Corporate Boards

One of our fintech clients needed to ensure that decisions made by its board were being documented democratically — but wanted to avoid bringing IT people into the picture.

We did an internal deployment of a permissioned blockchain. Votes were cryptographically verifiable but anonymous. No tampering. No favoritism. CFO termed it a step change in boardroom governance. I had to Google “paradigm shift” to get on board. I did.

Blockchain Security Solutions of PJ Networks

We’re not only exploring this — we’re implementing it for clients.

At PJ Networks, here’s what we are deploying:

• Identifying (Identity Verification Based on Blockchain)

Forget trusting LDAP and local directories. We put identity credentials on a private blockchain, so authentication events are validated peer-to-peer — no single IAM point of compromise.

• Tamper-Proof Audit Logs

By leveraging immutability, we make it possible for clients to save every log slice, in encrypted chains on blockchain, where nobody, not even your own CISO, can backdate or delete entries.

Very helpful in compliance-intensive sectors such as BFSI or pharma.

• Component AuthoringTHEME Smart Contract-Based Access Policies

Allow devs 2 hours of access to one database table? No problem.

We create smart contracts that impose contextual access. Access disappears either when the timer runs out, or when behavior changes. Automatically.

Honestly? You won’t have to tell that intern to “log out when you’re done” ever again.

• Decentralized Domain Name System (DNS) and Certification Issuance

We’re experimenting with systems that eliminate the need for DNS registrars and CAs (cert authorities). You know that big attack against a CA that was compromised? By employing blockchain, one is able to eliminate that need for a root authority entirely.

Conclusion

To put it bluntly — centralized security is dead. Or at least experiencing a slow, awkward death. Attackers are quicker, more structured, and better funded than most network security budgets. We can’t continue to fight the delusion that concentric rings of defense will hold them off.

The decentralization of blockchain isn’t a cure-all. It raises its own questions, scaling challenges and complexity. But you know what? Every security model does.

What gets me all excited — and after being in this biz for 30 years, that’s saying something — is how blockchain turns the table:

• Trusting infrastructure comes to an end. We start verifying it.
• We make everyone stop having admin rights. We bake fine-grained permissioning into the system itself.
• We stop logging in a plain text files (really, we are doing this in 2024?).

Decentralized Security and Bitcoin Cybersecurity aren’t just hashtags, they are genuine, adoptable strategies. And they’re the foundation of future zero-trust systems designed without blind spots or single points of failure.

So if you’re serious about front-line protection for your entire network — firewalls, servers, routers, the whole schlep — start thinking decentralized. Embodied Trustless Tokens: Start building trustless systems.

Or keep hoping that the next VPN patch doesn’t break something critical again.

I’ve done both.

One of them works better.

Sanjay Seth

PJ Networks Pvt Ltd

Empowering businesses to adopt Decentralized Security starting with one node.