Forta is a decentralized Web3 Security and Monitoring Network network for monitoring, detecting and alerting users to potential threats and anomalies. You can imagine the Forta as a giant security camera and alarm system watching over DeFi and NFTs. Today, Forta Network protects over $36 billion in Ethereum, Polygon, Binance Smart Chain, Arbitrum, Optimism, Avalanche and Fantom.
There are two main components to Rede Forta – bots and scan nodes. Bots are pieces of code that act like little virtual security cameras, monitoring something specific in the chain. Scan nodes are like the behind-the-scenes alarm system that runs the bots on each transaction block. If a bot finds what it’s looking for in a block, the node running that bot issues a public alert.
Forta’s role in attack prevention is to detect threats and other malicious activity as early as possible. By alerting our users as early as possible, they have the opportunity to take preventative measures.
How did the idea for Forta come about?
The Forta Network was incubated within OpenZeppelin, one of the largest Web 3 security companies and a leading smart contract auditor.
The concept of a decentralized runtime safety net was born out of the belief that public financial infrastructure (public blockchains, DeFi protocols, and digital assets) also needed a layer of public monitoring.
How has Forta evolved over the past two years?
Forta was released in Fall 2021 and the community has made incredible progress over the past year. Forta protects nearly $36 billion in user assets across the seven largest EVM chains, including Ethereum. This translates to direct monitoring of 52% of the TVL from the top 30 DeFi protocols including MakerDAO, Compound, Lido, Aave, Balancer and more.
Forta now has 5,000+ scan nodes operating 900+ detection bots with 14,000+ user signatures.
What can we expect from Forta in the future?
Forta’s mission is to secure Web 3, and that will happen through collaboration.
We’re excited to see more individual developers and security and technology companies joining the network and leveraging Forta… developing bots, improving threat detection, and collaborating with others.
We’re also seeing more data science and machine learning techniques being applied to security, and the Forta Foundation has started to engage with these communities on Web 2 and in academia as well.
In the coming year, expect the sophistication of Web 3 threat detection to evolve rapidly.
