Communications of the ACM
DARPA Report Finds Vulnerabilities in Blockchain Tech, Non-Secure Crypto Transactions
Authored by cybersecurity consulting firm Trail of Bits, the report found that some blockchain technologies can be mutable and susceptible to change, which threatens the data stored within the proof-of-work blockchain.
Credit: Yuichiro Chino/Getty
Researchers at cybersecurity consulting firm Trail of Bits vetted the security of blockchain software's distributed ledger technologies for the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
The researchers found some technologies can be altered, jeopardizing the data stored within the proof-of-work blockchain.
The team explained the system's "immutability can be broken not by exploiting cryptographic vulnerabilities, but instead by subverting the properties of a blockchain's implementations, networking, and consensus protocol."
For example, if just one node in the blockchain ledger network lacks proper security protocols or is operated by a bad actor, the data routed through the blockchain can be hacked or changed.
Meanwhile, the corruption of a third party within the network route between nodes means actors can potentially disrupt ledger transactions, because all bitcoin protocol traffic is unencrypted.
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