Bribe & Fork: Cheap Bribing Attacks via Forking Threat

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Avarikioti, Zeta, Kędzior, Paweł, Lizurej, Tomasz, Michalak, Tomasz
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2024
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author Avarikioti, Zeta
Kędzior, Paweł
Lizurej, Tomasz
Michalak, Tomasz
author_facet Avarikioti, Zeta
Kędzior, Paweł
Lizurej, Tomasz
Michalak, Tomasz
contents In this work, we reexamine the vulnerability of Payment Channel Networks (PCNs) to bribing attacks, where an adversary incentivizes blockchain miners to deliberately ignore a specific transaction to undermine the punishment mechanism of PCNs. While previous studies have posited a prohibitive cost for such attacks, we show that this cost may be dramatically reduced (to approximately \$125), thereby increasing the likelihood of these attacks. To this end, we introduce Bribe & Fork, a modified bribing attack that leverages the threat of a so-called feather fork which we analyze with a novel formal model for the mining game with forking. We empirically analyze historical data of some real-world blockchain implementations to evaluate the scale of this cost reduction. Our findings shed more light on the potential vulnerability of PCNs and highlight the need for robust solutions.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2402_01363
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Bribe & Fork: Cheap Bribing Attacks via Forking Threat
Avarikioti, Zeta
Kędzior, Paweł
Lizurej, Tomasz
Michalak, Tomasz
Cryptography and Security
In this work, we reexamine the vulnerability of Payment Channel Networks (PCNs) to bribing attacks, where an adversary incentivizes blockchain miners to deliberately ignore a specific transaction to undermine the punishment mechanism of PCNs. While previous studies have posited a prohibitive cost for such attacks, we show that this cost may be dramatically reduced (to approximately \$125), thereby increasing the likelihood of these attacks. To this end, we introduce Bribe & Fork, a modified bribing attack that leverages the threat of a so-called feather fork which we analyze with a novel formal model for the mining game with forking. We empirically analyze historical data of some real-world blockchain implementations to evaluate the scale of this cost reduction. Our findings shed more light on the potential vulnerability of PCNs and highlight the need for robust solutions.
title Bribe & Fork: Cheap Bribing Attacks via Forking Threat
topic Cryptography and Security
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.01363