BlockCypher, a blockchain web services company, has announced the release of its Analytics API to help institutions combat cybersecurity thefts and comply with regulations.

Earlier in June, the startup was awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) to show how blockchain analytics can help identify hackers and prevent cybersecurity attacks. BlockCypher’s Analytics API was demonstrated to the cybersecurity and analytics divisions of the U.S. DHS S&T.

“They demonstrated capabilities to track very large heists, the technology to analyze patterns in blockchain transactions, and an architecture that can go even further,” says Stephen Dennis, DHS S&T, Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency, Data Analytics Engine Director.

According to the official release, BlockCypher applied the new Analytics API to the $70M Bitfinex heist. Within hours of the theft, it was able to track down the IP addresses which relayed the transactions, the addresses where the hacker moved and holds the money, and the value on each address. Detecting and containing data breaches faster has proven to reduce costs.

"Everyone is getting hacked - individuals, schools, race car drivers, startups, institutions, etc. - and hackers are wanting their ransoms in Bitcoin," says Catheryne Nicholson, BlockCypher Founder and CEO. “Bad guys are always early adopters of new technology. To combat it, institutions have to be more forward-looking in using technology instead of constantly patching legacy infrastructure.”

BlockCypher’s Analytics API was built using Amazon Redshift – a fully managed, petabyte-scale data warehouse service in the cloud that makes it simple and cost-effective to efficiently analyze the data using existing business intelligence tools.

“Data analytics is at the heart of combating cybersecurity threats and better-enabling compliance reporting,” says Scott Mullins, Head of Worldwide Financial Services Business Development at Amazon Web Services, Inc. “AWS is a leading provider of secure, resilient, and cost-effective cloud services that power data analytics for the financial services industry. We’re thrilled to see BlockCypher’s Blockchain Web Services and Analytics use AWS to defend against new types of cybercrime, and reduce the costs and time related to compliance reporting.”

In June 2016, BlockCypher added support for Ethereum, becoming the first software company to offer both Ethereum and Bitcoin APIs on the same platform. It announced the beta release of Ethereum web services that enables companies to easily build applications using the Ethereum Protocol without having to run blockchain infrastructure.