As we enter the era of Web3 that yielded an uptick in financial technology developments, many opportunities have arisen. However, along with this rise comes its associated potential threats. Such risks emphasise the importance of adopting better cybersecurity solutions to further ease and protect digital transactions at scale, especially in the cryptocurrency space.

To discuss the matter, e27 sits with Ze Chong Tan, Chief Strategy Officer at UKISS Technology, a tech firm specialising in blockchain solutions, network security, file encryption, identity authentication, and crypto wallets.

A closer look at cybersecurity with Ze Chong Tan of UKISS Technology

As a veteran in the cybersecurity space with over 30 years of experience in the cybersecurity and tech spaces, Tan shared a look back at his career beginnings in IT. It was at the time of the first dot-com boom in the Southeast Asian region where he was working in the connectivity provider and distributed server solutions industry. He then became part of the National Computer Board and NETS to create the first Public Certificate Authority (CA) in the Southeast Asian region.

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“Security considerations played a significant role in the growth of the internet, and identifying and authenticating users coming to websites was the first purpose of setting up the Public CA. In a way, it was SingPass 1.0.,” explained Tan. “I was fortunate to participate in driving that development as public key infrastructure (PKI) was still an evolving standard at the time. Today, the mass proliferation of public key cryptography has created whole cybersecurity industries, with technologies like SSL, TLS, VPN, Symmetric/Asymmetric Encryption, and eventually, blockchain,” Tan added.

Fast forward to today, digital businesses transitioning their operations of running digital transactions from on-premise set-ups to the cloud have paved the way to more relevant cybersecurity solutions that adapt to this new web infrastructure, especially in Web3.

How UKISS Technology was founded

The need for a more robust cybersecurity system also applies to consumers, where the risk of preventing bad actors from entering these networks increases as the information is now online and data assets are no longer locked with a simple perimeter. This was the premise of how UKISS Technology was founded: to address the pain points of Web3 users by creating a haven to protect the entire life cycle of their private keys. 

“In Web3, private and public key cryptography forms the basis of all transactions. It is a world where the proof of ownership of the private key is central to enabling things to happen. This nature of Web3 security caused crypto owners a lot of pain when they lost access to their wallets, had their wallets hacked, or were conned into disclosing their private keys. We want to empower users to engage and navigate the decentralised world of Web3 easily and safely”, Tan shared.

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Tan has pioneered blockchain developments in Singapore and has played a significant role in creating Singapore’s first public Certificate Authority and the region’s earlier B2B digital payment solutions. In the advent of cloud computing, Tan shared further about the ramifications of how cybersecurity is delivered.

“Hybrid and complex connectivity meant it took a lot of work to guard gateways. Cybersecurity then evolved to take on a Zero Trust approach, which deemed any connection coming in or out of a machine hostile until proven otherwise. Blockchain technology provides an evolutionary public/private key mechanism that is effective and has widespread potential to enable trust in Zero Trust environments. UKISS Technology believes in bringing our users to a world where they are protected when providing proof to Web3 services. We’re engineering our solutions with the best security technology for the masses,” Tan explained.

Forging a path towards a more secure future

As global standards for cybersecurity solutions evolve with emerging needs and contexts, the industry is expanding its adoption of Decentralised Identifiers (DID), decentralised validation, and authentication, among others.

In this field, Tan foresees more structures of trust in the internet, delivered through the language of blockchain. “We have seen pandemic travellers producing health or vaccine certificates to prove they have been vaccinated or have not contracted COVID-19. The certificate, or some would call it Health Passport, is a form of Verifiable Credential. It is a Web3 application that leverages the certificate issuer’s DID for verification purposes. I believe trust in online documentation can be established quickly for the masses. I also foresee mainstream financial systems adopting blockchain ledgers to provide immutable evidence, just as we have seen in the crypto world,” Tan cited as an example.

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Looking further ahead, this new way of digital exchange emphasises the imperative to build solutions that forge trust among actors on the web. This presents a challenge in cybersecurity, given the lack of trust in centralised systems and the concentration of critical data for financial gains. On the other hand, this also presents an opportunity to build a more robust infrastructure around transactions in the decentralised financial processing space. 

“Data and hacks could happen, and threats from outside and within centralised data institutions and financial exchanges will be palpable. To counter such threats, enhancing system resilience by decentralising data and security control will become more realistic,” Tan elaborated.

“Technology vendors should strive to break this cycle by establishing fundamental trust in all connections on the internet. Pushing for Web3 is one such way. I wish to see UKISS Technology providing the best and simplest Web3 tools for the masses. You do not need to be a crypto native to access the best protection of your assets and data,” he remarked.

For more information on UKISS Technology and its pioneering cybersecurity solutions, visit their official page.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by UKISS Technology

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