It is a well-known proverb that ‘excess of everything is bad’. A similar applies to bitcoin and its network. Bitcoin has been operational since 2009 when the first purchase of pizza was done. Since then, many transactions have happened and with the increase in the number of transactions, the popularity of bitcoin has increased. With the increase in the volume of transaction numbers and volume of funds, the happenings of bitcoin stealing and other cyber-attacks have also increased. The advancement of technology, scammers and fraudsters have also advanced themselves and are trying to lure investors and loot them out of their pockets. You can always improve your trading skills by investing in a reputable trading platform like this platform.
As a result, people are becoming more cautious and it is necessary to as the results of carelessness are probably fatal for the entire bitcoin structure. In this article, we are going to discuss the probable attacks that can prove harmful to the investors of the bitcoin network.
Sybil Attack
This is one of the most common cyber-attacks happening in a peer-to-peer network. In this attack, the evil-eyed attacker targets the entire bitcoin network. Here, a node that operates to be an essential part of the entire bitcoin chain operates with multiple identities at the same time resulting in undermining the system. This attack wants to gain the most share of influence in the entire bitcoin network for getting the illegal work done successfully. Due to difficulty in tracking, this defect is difficult to track and resolve to cause a lot of problems at the root level. The problem though can be sorted by increasing the cost of creating an identity over the node, validation requirement for joining the network, and giving authority and power to members.
Race Attack
In this type of attack, a recipient needs to accept a payment that is usually unconfirmed and invalid at its root. When the attacker sends the same asset to different vendors by his different machines and the vendors due to their carelessness deliver the services without getting the confirmation from blocks or other reasons, they fall prey to this attack. They realize this only when after some time they notice rejection in the transaction report and as a result, the loss is incurred by the vendor. This attack is more significant when the attacker has a direct reach to the vendor’s node and can be prevented by taking action only after getting confirmation from the blocks.
Finney attack
Named after Hal Finney, this attack has a specification of double-spending in the form of crypto or other funds. The attacker here is none other than a miner himself who blocks such coins that has the feature of paying back some share while making the transaction. The pre-mined blocks send the same coins in the second transaction and due to the time taken before rejecting these coins a vendor can fall prey to this attack. This attack can be prevented by waiting for at least six blocks of confirmation before releasing any type of service or goods.
Vector76 attack
Vector76 attack is the combination of Finney and Race attack. The entire assault revolves around two nodes, one of whom is associated with an exchange kind node while the other is a trusted peer. The miners rely on creating low-value and high-value transactions. The attacker here exchanges the high-value transaction with that of the low-value transaction wherever the transaction is getting successful. Thus, it kind of scams the system by sending the wrong information. The attack can be prevented by connecting to reliable and well-connected valid nodes.
