Blockchain for finance pioneer Quant launched a new service for financial institutions, payment firms and other enterprises struggling to protect their smart contracts and decentralised applications from vulnerabilities. Quant is enabling the secure transformation to decentralisation and blockchain networks, migrating from on-prem and cloud infrastructure and applications to distributed ledger technologies.
Quant Smart Audit, the first of a suite of enterprise security solutions for blockchain known as Quant Protect, is a smart contract auditing service designed to provide enterprises with the security levels they expect in order to execute their blockchain strategies, delivered by the same experts who powered the Project Rosalind retail central bank digital currency project.
Although blockchains themselves are highly secure, smart contracts – the programs that run on the blockchain and govern protocols such as cross-chain bridges – can be exploited by malicious actors if not written properly and tested thoroughly. According to blockchain data platform Chainalysis, 2022 was the biggest year ever for such hacking, with $3.8bn stolen. Chainalysis writes: “DeFi protocols as victims accounted for 82.1% of all cryptocurrency stolen by hackers — a total of $3.1 billion — up from 73.3% in 2021. And of that $3.1 billion, 64% came from cross-chain bridge protocols specifically. […] Bridges are an attractive target for hackers because the smart contracts in effect become huge, centralised repositories of funds backing the assets that have been bridged to the new chain — a more desirable honeypot could scarcely be imagined.”
Quant’s new service makes it simple for enterprises writing smart contracts to have them independently assessed to the highest standards to remedy and mitigate any security threats and vulnerabilities.
Martin Hargreaves, Chief Product Officer at Quant, comments: “Given the risk level posed by sub-standard smart contracts, it has become industry best-practice for anyone issuing them to have them first audited by a 3rd party. What makes our service different is our focus on finance and our heritage in cybersecurity. The Quant team understands the intricacies of this highly regulated sector and combines the necessary technical, business and legal knowledge to offer an appropriate level of analysis and diligence.”
Luke Riley, Head of Innovation at Quant, comments: “Over the last few years, in order to write smart contracts while working on large-scale infrastructure projects like LACChain and Project Rosalind, we’ve developed a suite of testing tools and bolstered the specialist knowledge required to audit smart contracts to the highest standards. That’s now available to any Quant customer via Smart Audit.”
About Quant
Quant is the foundation of the blockchain economy.
Assets of all kinds, from currencies to carbon credits, are being tokenised on blockchain, making their ownership immutable, their provenance traceable and their use easy to manage. Our patented technology makes this simple, trusted and future-proof.
We work with financial institutions and other enterprises to dramatically reduce their time-to-market, create new revenue lines, and mitigate risk by delivering enterprise-grade solutions built with security and compliance front of mind.
Founded in 2018, Quant is UK-based with a US presence. We spearheaded the Blockchain ISO Standard TC307 adopted by 57 countries and solved interoperability with the creation of the world’s first API-based blockchain platform, Overledger.
To find out more, visit quant.network.