Introduction
Private keys are the most sensitive material in Web3. If compromised, the consequences are devastating, often leading to significant financial losses and irreversible damage. As the Web3 ecosystem continues to expand, so do the risks associated with managing these sensitive keys. The growing number of attack vectors means that businesses face a wide range of potential threats, including malicious insiders, accidental errors, and external attacks. Where will the next threat come from?
Some of the most common risks include:
- Hardware malfunctions: Failures in physical devices can lead to key loss or exposure.
- Rogue employees: Whether it’s a staff member who succumbs to temptation or one with ill intentions from the start, the risk of insider threats is real (as highlighted in this Coindesk story).
- Accidental mistakes: Human errors, often referred to as “fat fingers,” can cause critical issues.
- Cloud provider hacks: Even the most trusted cloud platforms are not immune to breaches.
The solution lies in mitigating these risks through a strategic approach - distributing the risk- eliminating single points of failure and creating multiple layers of security. This is where Multi-Party Computation (MPC) shines, offering a robust method for distributing and safeguarding private keys across multiple locations and infrastructures.
MPC: A Powerful Risk Distribution Mechanism
MPC technology transforms the way organizations manage their sensitive cryptographic keys. Rather than relying on a single key, which presents a single point of failure, MPC is used to distributively create multiple secret shares. These shares are stored and managed in secure, independent environments and communicate with each other to sign transactions without being reconstructed.
This structure means that the risk of key compromise can be distributed across various domains, including:
- Different admins within an organization
- Separate tech stacks
- Multiple cloud providers
- Diverse geographical locations
And the list goes on...
The Ultimate Defense: Decentralization and Multi-layered Security
By leveraging MPC, organizations can make it exponentially harder for attackers to succeed. The decentralized nature of MPC means that no single point of failure is enough to compromise the system. Attackers can no longer wait for the next vulnerability in a single system. Instead, they would need to break through the defenses of several independent environments simultaneously.
This defense is superior to relying on traditional secure enclaves alone. While secure enclaves offer a baseline level of protection, the growing number of vulnerabilities shows they are not infallible. However, combining them with MPC provides a multi-layered defense, ensuring that even if one element fails, the entire system remains secure.
A best practice for enhancing security is to distribute secret shares across multiple cloud providers and geographical locations, using different secure enclave technologies like AWS Nitro, GCP GKE, and Azure Confidential Containers. Each share operates with an independent policy engine that enforces organization-wide, pre-configured rules, ensuring that the shares are used solely for authorized purposes.
Sodot’s Self-Hosted MPC Infrastructure
At Sodot, we offer a self-hosted MPC infrastructure that enables businesses to implement this decentralized security model with a simple integration process accompanied by Sodot’s expert engineers and cryptographers. One of the core benefits of our solution is that it minimizes counterparty risk. With our self-hosted design, customers are not dependent on us as a vendor for day-to-day operations, giving them full control over their key management infrastructure.
Our seamless integration process allows businesses to quickly adopt MPC without sacrificing performance or ease of use. Whether you’re looking to distribute risks across multiple cloud providers or strengthen your organization’s internal security practices, Sodot’s MPC infrastructure is the ideal solution.
For additional information, feel free to reach out.
