Increasing Security of Nodes of a Blockchain by Simple Web Application Firewalls

In recent times, a lot of attacks against central server infrastructures have been recognized. Those infrastructures have seen attacks ranging from attacks against Internt of Things (IoT) infrastructures, via attacks against public infrastructure to attacks against cryptocurrency exchanges and blockchain based infrastructures themselves, e.g., the already almost legendary Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) hack. Measured by press coverage, attacks against cryptocurrency exchanges and infrastructures seem to be among the most prominently reported attacks, probably due to the large amount of money that is stolen during those attacks and the great (but obviously still quite risky) potential (and financial involvement) of the blockchain technology. Naturally, attacks like the ones we have seen recently in crease the notion of uncertainty of blockchain technologies among the people,mreflected in lower values of cryptocurrencies in general. Obviously, this demands for an overall increase of security of cryptocurrency based technologies. Therefore, this paper provides an architectural approach, based on a proxy,to increase security of publicly available nodes of a blockchain based technology. Furthermore, it provides a first evaluation of the approach based on the results of an extensive community test of a new cryptocurrency