Exploring Partitioning Attacks on the Bitcoin Network

Saad, Muhammad; Cook, Victor; Nguyen, L.D.; Thai, My T.; Mohaisen, Aziz

doi:10.1109/tnet.2021.3105604

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…A network partitioning assault occurs when an attacker takes control of a few network nodes, prevents them from interacting with other nodes, splits the network into multiple separate subnetworks, and eventually results in network splitting. Network partitioning attacks are a particularly serious issue in distributed systems because they might cause the system to have a Byzantine failure, or an inability to reach a consensus [11].…”

Section: Complex and Costly Implementationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Blockchain Security Threats and Collaborative Defense: A Literature Review

Li,

Cheng,

Shi

et al. 2023

Computers, Materials &Amp; Continua

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As a distributed database, the system security of the blockchain is of great significance to prevent tampering, protect privacy, prevent double spending, and improve credibility. Due to the decentralized and trustless nature of blockchain, the security defense of the blockchain system has become one of the most important measures. This paper comprehensively reviews the research progress of blockchain security threats and collaborative defense, and we first introduce the overview, classification, and threat assessment process of blockchain security threats. Then, we investigate the research status of single-node defense technology and multi-node collaborative defense technology and summarize the blockchain security evaluation indicators and evaluation methods. Finally, we discuss the challenges of blockchain security and future research directions, such as parallel detection and federated learning. This paper aims to stimulate further research and discussion on blockchain security, providing more reliable security guarantees for the use and development of blockchain technology to face changing threats and challenges through continuous updating and improvement of defense technologies.

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Section: Complex and Costly Implementationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Blockchain Security Threats and Collaborative Defense: A Literature Review

Li,

Cheng,

Shi

et al. 2023

Computers, Materials &Amp; Continua

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“…In this section, we review a few recent Bitcoin partitioning attacks [6,[10][11][12]. We particularly focus on the Erebus attack and SyncAttack, and highlight their differences in Table 1.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Once the traffic to such prefixes is hijacked, the adversary AS drops Bitcoin traffic at the network layer, effectively cutting off the communication between targeted Bitcoin nodes and the rest of the P2P network. This is further extended in a multi-cryptocurrency attack by Saad et al [11]. Since evaluating the sustainability of such attacks inherently requires measuring the sustainability of the routing manipulation, we leave it for future work.…”

Section: Bitcoin Partitioning Attacks Using Routing Manipulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the Sustainability of Bitcoin Partitioning Attacks

Ha,

Baek,

Tran

et al. 2023

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

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A series of recent studies have shown that permissionless blockchain peer-to-peer networks can be partitioned at low cost (e.g., only a few thousand bots are needed), stealthily (e.g., no control plane detection is available), or at scale (e.g., the entire bitcoin network can be divided into two). In this paper, we focus on the sustainability of partitioning attacks in Bitcoin, which is barely discussed in the literature. Existing studies investigate new partitioning attack strategies extensively but not how long the partition they create lasts. Our findings show that, fortunately for Bitcoin, the permissionless peer-to-peer network can be partitioned but only for a short time. In particular, two recent partitioning attacks (i.e., Erebus [12], SyncAttack [10]) do not maintain partitions for more than 10 minutes in most cases. After analyzing Bitcoin's peer eviction mechanism (which makes the two original attacks difficult to sustain), we propose optimization strategies for the two attacks and calculate the total cost of the optimized attacks for a 1-hour attack duration. Our results complement the original attack studies: (i) the optimized Erebus attack shows that it requires at least one adversary-controlled Bitcoin node close to a target and a few additional expensive attack steps for sustainable attacks, and (ii) the optimized SyncAttack can create sustainable partitions only with excessive cost.

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