Survey on Security Mechanisms against the 51% vulnerability attack in Blockchain (original) (raw)
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On Subversive Miner Strategies and Block Withholding Attack in Bitcoin Digital Currency
Bitcoin is a "crypto currency", a decentralized electronic payment scheme based on cryptography. Bitcoin economy grows at an incredibly fast rate and is now worth some 10 billions of dollars. Bitcoin mining is an activity which consists of creating (minting) the new coins which are later put into circulation. Miners spend electricity on solving cryptographic puzzles and they are also gatekeepers which validate bitcoin transactions of other people. Miners are expected to be honest and have some incentives to behave well. However. In this paper we look at the miner strategies with particular attention paid to subversive and dishonest strategies or those which could put bitcoin and its reputation in danger. We study in details several recent attacks in which dishonest miners obtain a higher reward than their relative contribution to the network. In particular we revisit the concept of block withholding attacks and propose a new concrete and practical block withholding attack ...
Breaking Down of 51% Double Spend Attack (DSA) in Blockchain Technology
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Today the emerging trend and innovative technology is block chain technology. The actual question is how to manage this. The basic concept behind this is mining. Block chain is equal to governance. It is basic type of governance. It governs a book called ledger which contains information. Here we focus on double spend attack in block chain. The attackers has a space to block the new transactions from gaining access to acknowledgements. They make half payments between some or all users. It is even possible to reverse transactions when using the network or holding the complete control of the network thus spending the coins twice which means double spend coins. This attack always exist as a thread and users are panic about their transactions being used by a corrupted miner. The solution for this malicious mining is Proof of Work (PoW) which is proved to be not sufficiently decentralized or secure. So here we are focusing on Proof of Stake (PoS) concept which is a response to the treat ...
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Selfish mining is a typical malicious attack targeting the blockchain-based bitcoin system, an emerging crypto asset. Because of the non-incentive compatibility of the bitcoin mining protocol, the attackers are able to collect unfair mining rewards by intentionally withholding blocks. The existing works on selfish mining mostly focused on cryptography design, and malicious behavior detection based on different approaches, such as machine learning or timestamp. Most defense strategies show their effectiveness in the perspective of reward reduced. No work has been performed to design a defense strategy that aims to improve bitcoin dependability and provide a framework for quantitively evaluating the improvement. In this paper, we contribute by proposing two network-wide defensive strategies: the dynamic difficulty adjustment algorithm (DDAA) and the acceptance limitation policy (ALP). The DDAA increases the mining difficulty dynamically once a selfish mining behavior is detected, whil...
Blockchain Network Threats: The Case of PoW and Ethereum
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Developers do not properly take into account possible problems on the Internet. This fact can cause problems in the operation of blockchain systems. The subject of our analysis was Ethereum due to its short block creation time and, as a result, a strong reaction to faults in the network. We checked the possible threats from the miners during the unreliable work of the Internet. For the study, we conducted many simulations of the work of Ethereum with different delays in the propagation of blocks and various mining power allocations. The results showed that if the duration of the troubles is more than 10 h, a miner with 26% can capture the entire Ethereum network, but this requires the intervention of people controlling other nodes. This is possible because it will be more cost-effective for them.
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The goal of security is to protect digital assets, devices, and services from being disrupted, exploited or stolen by unauthorized users. It is also about having reliable information available at the right time. [Motivation] Since the inception in 2009 of the first cryptocurrency, few studies have been undertaken to analyze and review the state-of-the-art research and current developments with respect to the security of cryptocurrencies. [Purpose] We aim to provide both theoretical and empirical insights into the security landscape, in particular focusing on both technical solutions and human-related facets. [Methodology] We used an integrative review which could help in building science and scholarly research, the basis for conceptual and empirical models. [Results] Successful defense against cyberattacks depends on technical measures on the one hand, as well as on self-education and training with the aim to develop competence, knowledge, skills and social abilities, on the other. [Contribution] Our findings provide a comprehensive review for the major achievements and developments of the recent progress on the security of cryptocurrencies. [Future research] Since there is increasing interest in adoption of the current solutions within the central bank digital currencies, the future research should explore the development and inception of effective measures against social engineering attacks, which still remain the main concern. Keywords: security; digital currency; cryptocurrency; wallet; architecture; data transmission method; social engineering attack; countermeasures
arXiv (Cornell University), 2023
Blockchain technology transformed the digital sphere by providing a transparent, secure, and decentralized platform for data security across a range of industries, including cryptocurrencies and supply chain management. Blockchain's integrity and dependability have been jeopardized by the rising number of security threats, which have attracted cybercriminals as a target. By summarizing suggested fixes, this research aims to offer a thorough analysis of mitigating blockchain attacks. The objectives of the paper include identifying weak blockchain attacks, evaluating various solutions, and determining how effective and effective they are at preventing these attacks. The study also highlights how crucial it is to take into account the particular needs of every blockchain application. This study provides beneficial perspectives and insights for blockchain researchers and practitioners, making it essential reading for those interested in current and future trends in blockchain security research.
IEEE Access, 2021
Blockchain is a technology that ensures data security by verifying database of records established in a decentralized and distributed network. Blockchain-based approaches have been applied to secure data in the fields of the Internet of Things, software engineering, healthcare systems, financial services, and smart power grids. However, the security of the blockchain system is still a major concern. We took the initiative to present a systematic study which sheds light on what defensive strategies are used to secure the blockchain system effectively. Specifically, we focus on blockchain data security that aims to mitigate the two data consistency attacks: double-spend attack and selfish mining attack. We employed the systematic approach to analyze a total of 40 selected studies using the proposed taxonomy of defensive strategies: monitoring, alert forwarding, alert broadcasting, inform, detection, and conceptual research design. It presents a comparison framework for existing and future research on blockchain security. Finally, some recommendations are proposed for blockchain researchers and developers. INDEX TERMS Blockchain, double-spend attack, selfish mining attack, systematic review.
Future Internet, 2021
Blockchain technology is a sustainable technology that offers a high level of security for many industrial applications. Blockchain has numerous benefits, such as decentralisation, immutability and tamper-proofing. Blockchain is composed of two processes, namely, mining (the process of adding a new block or transaction to the global public ledger created by the previous block) and validation (the process of validating the new block added). Several consensus protocols have been introduced to validate blockchain transactions, Proof-of-Work (PoW) and Proof-of-Stake (PoS), which are crucial to cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin. However, these consensus protocols are vulnerable to double-spending attacks. Amongst these attacks, the 51% attack is the most prominent because it involves forking a blockchain to conduct double spending. Many attempts have been made to solve this issue, and examples include delayed proof-of-work (PoW) and several Byzantine fault tolerance mechanisms. These att...
Bitcoin’s Blockchain Peer-to-Peer Network Security Attacks and Countermeasures
Indian Journal of Science and Technology
Objectives: The main objective of this work is familiarizing users and researchers about Bitcoin's blockchain peer-to-peer network system and investigating security attacks that threat this critical financial digital cash network. Method: A comprehensive research analysis was conducted to identify Bitcoin's blockchain peer-to-peer network security attacks and possible countermeasures to protect the Bitcoin network against such attacks. This bibliographical survey covers the related research works from the launch of blockchain in 2008 until the end of 2019. Results: This study investigates eleven attacks that threaten Bitcoin's blockchain peer-to-peer network systems and presents the possible countermeasures to defend these attacks. Conclusion: The conclusion obtained is encouraging the researchers to explore this hot research area. Besides, the study provides perspectives for future research directions in this domain.
Contra-∗: Mechanisms for countering spam attacks on blockchain's memory pools
Journal of Network and Computer Applications
Blockchain-based cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, have seen on the rise in their popularity and value, making them a target to several forms of Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks, and calling for a better understanding of their attack surface from both security and distributed systems standpoints. In this paper, and in the pursuit of understanding the attack surface of blockchains, we explore a new form of attack that can be carried out on the memory pools (mempools), and mainly targets blockchain-based cryptocurrencies. We study this attack on Bitcoin's mempool and explore the attack's effects on transactions fee paid by benign users. To counter this attack, this paper further proposes Contra-*, a set of countermeasures utilizing fee, age, and size (thus, Contra-F, Contra-A, and Contra-S) as prioritization mechanisms. Contra-* optimize the mempool size and help in countering the effects of DoS attacks due to spam transactions. We evaluate Contra-* by simulations and analyze their effectiveness under various attack conditions.