Blockchain Security: A Survey of Techniques and Research Directions

TLDR

Blockchain is a secure, shareable computing paradigm that combines chain structure, distributed consensus, cryptography, and smart contracts, yet its adoption is hindered by security challenges and prior research has largely focused on technical aspects while neglecting business, organizational, and operational concerns. This survey examines blockchain security from an information systems perspective, applying a process‑data‑infrastructure (PDI) model to analyze existing research. The authors conduct a literature review of blockchain security, analyze its current state, and propose future research directions addressing business and industrial concerns.

Abstract

Blockchain, an emerging paradigm of secure and shareable computing, is a systematic integration of 1) chain structure for data verification and storage, 2) distributed consensus algorithms for generating and updating data, 3) cryptographic techniques for guaranteeing data transmission and access security, and 4) automated smart contracts for data programming and operations. However, the progress and promotion of Blockchain have been seriously impeded by various security issues in blockchain-based applications. Furthermore, previous research on blockchain security has been mostly technical, overlooking considerable business, organizational, and operational issues. To address this research gap from the perspective of information systems, we review blockchain security research in three levels, namely, the process level, the data level, and the infrastructure level, which we refer to as the PDI model of blockchain security. In this survey, we examine the state of blockchain security in the literature. Based on the insights obtained from this initial analysis, we then suggest future directions of research in blockchain security, shedding light on urgent business and industrial concerns in related computing disciplines.