British Telecom received a patent for Blockchain security method

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In the patent assigned on October 31, British Telecommunications PLC (BT) outlined a method designed to prevent malicious attacks on blockchains, indicating a way of limiting who can make transactions in the system through user profiles. Then the base blockchain code can automatically reject transactions that do not correspond to the previously described accounts.

One example of use described in the patent includes " majority control attacks" (also called "51 percent attacks"), where a hostile force with more than 50 percent of the total processing power attempts to control a blockchain network. When an attack is detected, the system will automatically stop transactions, preventing even a majority attack in accordance with the patent.

Further, the patent cites widespread denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks that are designed to completely suppress a miner with an excessive number of transaction requests.

BT does not address the issue of how this will affect such attacks, but it states that "it would be beneficial to provide a mechanism for detecting and mitigating threats to blockchain environments."

Although the patent discusses the method for verifying transactions through an energy-intensive extraction process used in digital currencies, such as bitcoin, BT notes that this process is not tied to the patented system.