Abstract Blockchain technology has gained significant attention and adoption due to its decentralized nature, and promising secure and immutable transactions. The interpretation of Blockchain's components has been presented in an innovative manner, illustrating the features they enable or manage. However, its networks do not appear so immune to vulnerabilities like any other technological system. Among the typical weaknesses, endpoint vulnerabilities refer to weaknesses in the endpoints that interact with the blockchain network. They pose a significant risk to the security and integrity of the entire system. These vulnerabilities can affect blockchain networks including smart contract vulnerabilities, wallet vulnerabilities, and communication vulnerabilities. In view of the absence of any viable taxonomic description and associated value, we attempted a novel comprehensive classification of endpoint vulnerabilities. The proposed taxonomy is designed to logically categorize and classify the various endpoint vulnerabilities through a pictorial representation. It encompasses wallet vulnerabilities, malware, cryptojacking and human negligence. Additionally, this paper proposes a novel approach to mapping endpoint vulnerabilities to the blockchain abstract layer. It gives a unique way to study the vulnerabilities and layers' relation. Finally, the corresponding violated principles behind the vulnerabilities have been identified and indicated. By providing a structured taxonomy of endpoint vulnerabilities, this paper aims to enhance the understanding of the security challenges associated with blockchain applications. By understanding and addressing the taxonomy of endpoint vulnerabilities, blockchain practitioners and researchers can enhance blockchain networks' overall security and trustworthiness, paving the way for broader adoption and utilization of this transformative technology. It may have implications in terms of identifying, linking, developing control, and finally mitigating endpoint vulnerabilities in the rapidly changing environment.

Summary Since inception, blockchain has earned significant attention due to its exclusive characteristics and advantages. It has changed the way the transactions are conducted by eradicating the role of third parties and promises to ensure trust among the participants. This technology is emerging as a potential solution to several issues but not without certain security vulnerabilities. In particular, protection of sensitive data is a more critical issue in the absence of a third party. This paper is aimed to report and share the state of the art of sensitive data protection in blockchain applications. The covered aspects include identification of sensitive data, existing techniques to protect sensitive data and to know how real time data compromised by security risks, attacks, threats and vulnerabilities concerning blockchain applications. This paper analysis the tools and techniques used in the past for protecting sensitive data and categorized them. On the basis of research and intuitive findings, methods and techniques are elaborated which can contribute in future in the designing a framework for protection of sensitive data in blockchain applications.

Summary Every transaction is made public and verified by a third party, and the transparency of blockchain applications leads to privacy leaks. Everyone can access the transaction, making it easier for network analysis to identify the user's identity, which is a major problem with the blockchain. Financial institutions have become hesitant to adopt blockchain technology; as a result, preventing its spread. To confirm that encryption and security are maintained for transactions in the blockchain, this research introduces a zero‐knowledge proof (ZKP) based transaction validation scheme. To increase the security of blockchain applications, the proposed lattice‐based blind ring signature (LBRS) scheme integrates blind and ring signatures and is applied to sensitive data. The data are encrypted using this encryption scheme before being stored with the transactional information in the blocks. The encrypted data is then stored in the blocks, which users can retrieve after verification. The encrypted data is then stored in blocks, which users can retrieve after verification. A verification scheme based on the ZKP is used to prevent unauthorized access and changes to the data. The proposed LBRS scheme meets the security analysis requirement. The performance of an LBRS scheme is compared to other relevant models in terms of execution time, encryption time, and decryption time. Overall, the results are more encouraging and reassuring than other relevant works of interest. Finally, this model provides better computational security and satisfies the requirements like correctness and security analysis.

Abstract Security is an afterthought process for the development of software in earlier days but now the time has been changed. Now, security is on top priority and involved from the beginning of software development. Security requirements are the prime concern for the development and quality of any software product. The specification and verification of security requirements need a lot of attention from the computer science community in the process of the software development life cycle. Formal Methods are a widely used and well‐recognized approach for the specification and verification of any safety‐critical system. Formal methods play an important role in the requirement phase to the design phase of software development. In this study, we summarized the outcomes of related papers to find out the current state of the art in the proposed area. In this manuscript, three research questions are frame and we try to find the answer to these research questions to the best of our effort and knowledge. The objective of this research paper is to find out the gap analysis, state of art, and trends in the proposed area. The academician needs to pursue more effort toward the formal specification of security requirements, providing a deeper understanding to help security experts in the development of systems.