"Blockchain-Enabled Zero Trust Framework for Securing FinTech Ecosystems Against Insider Threats and Cyber Attacks"
Financial technology (FinTech) systems face escalating internal threats and advanced persistent threats (APTs), rendering traditional perimeter-based security models ineffective. To address this, this paper proposes a blockchain-enabled zero-trust security framework grounded in the principle of “never trust, always verify,” enabling dynamic access control and micro-segmentation. The framework innovatively leverages blockchain as a unified policy engine, enforcement point, and tamper-proof storage layer—thereby eliminating single points of failure. It integrates Ethereum smart contracts, multi-factor authentication (MFA), role-based access control (RBAC), and just-in-time (JIT) privilege management. Security validation of the decentralized application (DApp) is rigorously conducted using STRIDE threat modeling. Experimental evaluation on a 200-node network demonstrates significant security enhancement, bounded latency overhead, and native support for Layer-2 scalability optimizations.