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Home » Eclipse Attacks on Bitcoin’s Peer-to-Peer Network
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Eclipse Attacks on Bitcoin’s Peer-to-Peer Network

Authors: 

Ethan Heilman and Alison Kendler, Boston University; Aviv Zohar, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and MSR Israel; Sharon Goldberg, Boston University

Abstract: 

We present eclipse attacks on bitcoin’s peer-to-peer network. Our attack allows an adversary controlling a sufficient number of IP addresses to monopolize all connections to and from a victim bitcoin node. The attacker can then exploit the victim for attacks on bitcoin’s mining and consensus system, including N-confirmation double spending, selfish mining, and adversarial forks in the blockchain. We take a detailed look at bitcoin’s peer-to-peer network, and quantify the resources involved in our attack via probabilistic analysis, Monte Carlo simulations, measurements and experiments with live bitcoin nodes. Finally, we present countermeasures, inspired by botnet architectures, that are designed to raise the bar for eclipse attacks while preserving the openness and decentralization of bitcoin’s current network architecture.

Ethan Heilman, Boston University

Alison Kendler, Boston University

Aviv Zohar, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and MSR Israel

Sharon Goldberg, Boston University

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BibTeX
@inproceedings {190890,
author = {Ethan Heilman and Alison Kendler and Aviv Zohar and Sharon Goldberg},
title = {Eclipse Attacks on {Bitcoin{\textquoteright}s} {Peer-to-Peer} Network},
booktitle = {24th USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 15)},
year = {2015},
isbn = {978-1-939133-11-3},
address = {Washington, D.C.},
pages = {129--144},
url = {https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity15/technical-sessions/presentation/heilman},
publisher = {USENIX Association},
month = aug,
}
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