📕 BETTER THAN YESTERDAY WITH BSCSTATION #8: Blockchain Security Attacks You Should Know

Blockchain attacks are scorching right now for one simple reason: it’s where the money is.

With immutability, distributed consensus, established trust, distributed identity and eternal verifiable claims, Blockchain may sound like the ultimate security foolproof technology. But new age security attacks are emerging, which are very sophisticated and can cause huge irreparable damages.

Understanding these attack vectors is very important for developers as well as investors to fully adapt and evolve with the Blockchain industry. Prevention is better than cure!

In this part of Better Than Yesterday With BSCStation, we will focus on the “Blockchain Network Attacks” vector.

Blockchain Network Attacks

A blockchain network includes nodes that create and run transactions and provide other services.

For instance, the Bitcoin network is formed by nodes that send and receive transactions and miners that add approved transactions to blocks.

Cybercriminals look for network vulnerabilities and exploit them with the following types of attacks.

Distributed denial of service (DDoS)

DDoS attacks are hard to execute on a blockchain network, but they’re possible.

When attacking a blockchain network using DDoS, hackers intend to bring down a server by consuming all its processing resources with numerous requests.

DDoS attackers aim to disconnect a network’s mining pools, e-wallets, crypto exchanges, and other financial services. A blockchain can also be hacked with DDoS at its application layer using DDoS botnets.

Transaction malleability attacks

A transaction malleability attack is intended to trick the victim into paying twice. In the Bitcoin network, every transaction has a hash that’s a transaction ID. If attackers manage to alter a transaction’s ID, they can try to broadcast the transaction with a changed hash to the network and have it confirmed before the original transaction.

If this succeeds, the sender will believe the initial transaction has failed, while the funds will still be withdrawn from the sender’s account. And if the sender repeats the transaction, the same amount will be debited twice. This hack is successful once the two transactions are confirmed by miners.

Timejacking

Timejacking exploits a theoretical vulnerability in Bitcoin timestamp handling. During a timejacking attack, a hacker alters the network time counter of the node and forces the node to accept an alternative blockchain.

This can be achieved when a malicious user adds multiple fake peers to the network with inaccurate timestamps. However, a timejacking attack can be prevented by restricting acceptance time ranges or using the node’s system time.

Routing attacks

A routing attack can impact both individual nodes and the whole network. The idea of this hack is to tamper with transactions before pushing them to peers. It’s nearly impossible for other nodes to detect this tampering, as the hacker divides the network into partitions that are unable to communicate with each other. Routing attacks actually consist of two separate attacks:

• A partition attack, which divides the network nodes into separate groups

• A delay attack, which tampers with propagating messages and sends them to the network

Sybil attacks

A Sybil attack is arranged by assigning several identifiers to the same node. Blockchain networks have no trusted nodes, and every request is sent to a number of nodes.

During a Sybil attack, a hacker takes control of multiple nodes in the network. Then the victim is surrounded by fake nodes that close up all their transactions. Finally, the victim becomes open to double-spending attacks.

A Sybil attack is quite difficult to detect and prevent, but the following measures can be effective: increasing the cost of creating a new identity, requiring some type of trust for joining the network, or determining user power based on reputation.

Eclipse attacks

An eclipse attack requires a hacker to control a large number of IP addresses or to have a distributed botnet. Then the attacker overwrites the addresses in the “tried” table of the victim node and waits until the victim node is restarted.

After restarting, all outgoing connections of the victim node will be redirected to the IP addresses controlled by the attacker. This makes the victim unable to obtain transactions they’re interested in.

Long range attacks on proof of stake networks

Long range attacks target networks that use the proof of stake (PoS) consensus algorithm, in which users can mine or validate block transactions according to how many coins they hold.

These attacks can be categorized into three types:

Simple — A naive implementation of the proof of stake protocol, when nodes don’t check block timestamps

Posterior corruption — An attempt to mint more blocks than the main chain in a given time frame

Stake bleeding — Copying a transaction from the honestly maintained blockchain to a private blockchain maintained by the attacker

When conducting a long-range attack, a hacker uses a purchased or stolen private key of a sizable token balance that has already been used for validating in the past. Then, the hacker can generate an alternative history of the blockchain and increase rewards based on PoS validation.

Conclusion

Mistakes in Blockchain can be very costly, especially in permissionless networks, as anyone can participate, their identities are anonymous, and reverting back mistakes is impossible.

Therefore, it becomes imperative to know about the security holes and the kinds of attacks that cybercriminals can attempt to spot and fix them beforehand. Due to the irreversible nature of blockchain, a detailed understanding of concepts, security audits, and extensive testing is required before its adoption.

However, if one is inclined to make cryptocurrencies an integral part of his or her life, this risk should not deter potential users. Implementing a set of security best practices can significantly improve one’s cryptocurrency safety, encouraging attackers to choose alternative, more vulnerable targets.

About BSCStation

BSCStation - The fully decentralized protocol for launching new ideas. An all-in-one Incubation Hub with a full-stack Defi platform across all main blockchain networks. We provide exclusive services including IDO/INO Launchpad, Yield farming, NFT Auction, Marketplace, and BSCSwap.

BSCStation operates on top of all main blockchain networks and is designed to offer maximum value to consumers and institutions.

BSCStation platform uses the Sharing Economy Model for the purpose of profit-sharing, helping users to access DeFi platforms in the easiest, safest, and most cost-effective way. BSCStation is the most convenient bridge to connect users and application products on all main blockchain networks.

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The information provided in this article is intended for general guidance and information purposes only. Contents of this article are under no circumstances intended to be considered as investment, business, legal or tax advice. We do not accept any responsibility for individual decisions made based on this article and we strongly encourage you to do your own research before taking any action.