• 강사 : 강민석 교수 (KAIST 전산학부)
• 일시 : 2023. 9. 11 (월) 16:00~17:30

Blockchain networks are distributed systems that are supposed to be secure against active attacks. In this talk, I will present our recent work on finding and fixing vulnerabilities in blockchain networks. First, I will present our Bitcoin partitioning attack, called the Erebus attack. The Erebus attack partitions the Bitcoin network without any routing manipulations, making the attack undetectable to control-plane and even to data-plane detectors. I will discuss how we have been collaborating with the Bitcoin Core team to address this attack and introduce a remaining open problem. In the second part of the talk, I will present our recent attack, called the Gethlighting attack, that partitions target Ethereum nodes from their mainnet without directly occupying target's peer connections. This subtle denial-of-service vulnerability enables an adversary to prevent a target Ethereum node from accepting new blocks for hours, causing effective partitioning attacks. I will end the talk with a brief discussion on the future research directions in blockchain network security.