PayPal Ventures Into Blockchain Technology?

PayPal, the online payments giant is already focussing on blockchain technology. The firm has been awarded a crypto related patent.

The patent that was awarded to the payment giant is for a technique that could assist with the detection of a type of crypto malware, and help manage and reduce the effect of the malware on the overall system. It was filed in September 2016 and it has been awarded after almost three years after by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The new patent elaborates on how an existing system data cache can be leveraged to help with the detection and prevention of Malware from locking up targets’ files.

The patent further states,

“Ransomware can encrypt the contents of a hard drive or other networked files and make it inaccessible for system users so a system user who lacks decryption keys will no longer be able to readily access his or her data.”

This is what PayPal was trying to avoid by all means. The payment giant plans to do this with a “method involving detecting the first copy of original content that has been loaded into a cache of a computer system, retaining in the cache a second copy of that file and comparing the two to determine if the altered content represents an encrypted version of the original content.”

As a result of these measures, the original content is prevented from being deleted if the altered content has been encrypted.

“By detecting that ransomware is operating on a computer (e.g. by correlating between the original data and content in different cache layers), the negative effects of the ransomware may be mitigated or avoided.”

This, however, is not PayPal’s first attempt at getting a crypto related patent. It was only last year that the firm filed a patent application for a way to boost the speed of cryptocurrency payments.

Recently, PayPal made its first crypto related investment into a startup. Combining this with the new patent, it seems like payment giant is gearing up for a move into the blockchain space.

Rishma Banerjee

Rishma is currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in International Relations and has a special place in her life for sifting through all sorts of random trivia, thank you very much.