Related papers: BDoS: Blockchain Denial of Service
Bitcoin is the most secure blockchain in the world, supported by the immense hash power of its Proof-of-Work miners, but consumes huge amount of energy. Proof-of-Stake chains are energy-efficient, have fast finality and accountability, but…
A key component of security in decentralized blockchains is proof of opportunity cost among block producers. In the case of proof-of-work (PoW), currently used by the most prominent systems, the cost is due to spent computation. In this…
Blockchain protocols incentivize participation through monetary rewards, assuming rational actors behave honestly to maximize their gains. However, attackers may attempt to harm others even at personal cost. These denial of profit attacks…
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) is a common type of Cybercrime. It can strongly damage a company reputation and increase its costs. Attackers improve continuously their strategies. They doubled the amount of unleashed communication…
Reconfiguration of long-lived blockchain and Byzantine fault-tolerant (BFT) systems poses fundamental security challenges. In case of state-of-the-art Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchains, stake reconfiguration enables so-called long-range…
Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus protocols often face a trade-off between performance and security. Protocols that pre-elect leaders for subsequent rounds are vulnerable to Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks, which can disrupt the network and…
DDoS attacks are one of the most prevalent and harmful cybersecurity threats faced by organizations and individuals today. In recent years, the complexity and frequency of DDoS attacks have increased significantly, making it challenging to…
Blockchain technology has been gaining great interest from a variety of sectors, including healthcare, supply chain and cryptocurrencies. However, Blockchain suffers from its limited ability to scale (i.e. low throughput and high latency).…
The mempool plays a crucial role in blockchain systems as a buffer zone for pending transactions before they are executed and included in a block. However, existing works primarily focus on mitigating defenses against already identified…
Proof-of-Work (PoW) systems face critical challenges, including excessive energy consumption and the centralization of mining power among entities with expensive hardware. Static mining pools exacerbate these issues by reducing competition…
The core of a blockchain network is its consensus algorithm. Starting with the Proof-of-Work, there have been various versions of consensus algorithms, such as Proof-of-Stake (PoS), Proof-of-Authority (PoA), and Practical Byzantine Fault…
In a blockchain system, consensus protocol as an incentive and security mechanism, is to ensure the participants to build the block honestly and effectively. There are different consensus protocols for blockchain, like Proof of work (PoW),…
One decade ago, Bitcoin was introduced, becoming the first cryptocurrency and establishing the concept of "blockchain" as a distributed ledger. As of today, there are many different implementations of cryptocurrencies working over a…
The current Domain Name System (DNS) infrastructure faces critical vulnerabilities including poisoning attacks, censorship mechanisms, and centralized points of failure that compromise internet freedom and security. Recent incidents such as…
The consensus protocol named proof of work (PoW) is widely applied by cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Although security of a PoW cryptocurrency is always the top priority, it is threatened by mining attacks like selfish mining. Researchers…
Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain systems, especially those that allow stakeholders to organize themselves in ``stake-pools'', have emerged as a compelling paradigm for the deployment of large scale distributed ledgers. A stake-pool operates…
Blockchain consensus is a state whereby each node in a network agrees on the current state of the blockchain. Existing protocols achieve consensus via a contest or voting procedure to select one node as a dictator to propose new blocks.…
With the increasing adoption of decentralized information systems based on a variety of permissionless blockchain networks, the choice of consensus mechanism is at the core of many controversial discussions. Ethereum's recent transition…
In recent times, I've encountered a principle known as cloud computing, a model that simplifies user access to data and computing power on a demand basis. The main objective of cloud computing is to accommodate users' growing needs by…
The blockchain initially gained traction in 2008 as the technology underlying bitcoin, but now has been employed in a diverse range of applications and created a global market worth over $150B as of 2017. What distinguishes blockchains from…