The bitcoin network was at risk of completely
collapsing, after a major flaw was spotted with its
underlying software.
Developers issued a fix before hackers could
exploit the bug, which was only revealed publicly after
a solution had been found.According to the bitcoin developers, anyone mining the
cryptocurrency would have been able to carry out the
attack on the network, though it would have cost 12.5
bitcoins – roughly $80,000 (£60,000) – to perform
successfully.The attack would have meant exploiting the way
bitcoin transactions are confirmed through mining –
the process of generating new units of the
cryptocurrency by verifying transactions through
complex mathematical puzzles.
"A denial-of-service vulnerability (CVE-2018-17144)
exploitable by miners has been discovered in Bitcoin
Core versions 0.14.0 up to 0.16.2," an anonymous
developer wrote when disclosing the bug on Github.
"It is recommended to upgrade any of the vulnerable
versions to 0.16.3 as soon as possible."
The bug has been around since March 2017, however
either nobody noticed it or nobody was willing to incur
the expense of exploiting it.
If miners fail to upgrade to the new software, there
may still be a risk of the bitcoin network falling victim
to an attack, which could result in a significant portion
of the network crashing.Developers have pleaded
with bitcoin miners to
take the appropriate
action in order to protect
the network from
potential attacks, with the
anonymous co-owner of
bitcoin.org describing it
as a "very scary bug" on
Twitter.
"A very scary bug in
Bitcoin Core has just been fixed which could have
crashed a huge chunk of the Bitcoin network if
exploited by any rogue miners," Cobra Bitcoin tweeted .
Such issues were more common in the early years of
bitcoin, which was launched in 2009 following the
publication of a whitepaper by its pseudonymous
creator Satoshi Nakamoto.
collapsing, after a major flaw was spotted with its
underlying software.
Developers issued a fix before hackers could
exploit the bug, which was only revealed publicly after
a solution had been found.According to the bitcoin developers, anyone mining the
cryptocurrency would have been able to carry out the
attack on the network, though it would have cost 12.5
bitcoins – roughly $80,000 (£60,000) – to perform
successfully.The attack would have meant exploiting the way
bitcoin transactions are confirmed through mining –
the process of generating new units of the
cryptocurrency by verifying transactions through
complex mathematical puzzles.
"A denial-of-service vulnerability (CVE-2018-17144)
exploitable by miners has been discovered in Bitcoin
Core versions 0.14.0 up to 0.16.2," an anonymous
developer wrote when disclosing the bug on Github.
"It is recommended to upgrade any of the vulnerable
versions to 0.16.3 as soon as possible."
The bug has been around since March 2017, however
either nobody noticed it or nobody was willing to incur
the expense of exploiting it.
If miners fail to upgrade to the new software, there
may still be a risk of the bitcoin network falling victim
to an attack, which could result in a significant portion
of the network crashing.Developers have pleaded
with bitcoin miners to
take the appropriate
action in order to protect
the network from
potential attacks, with the
anonymous co-owner of
bitcoin.org describing it
as a "very scary bug" on
Twitter.
"A very scary bug in
Bitcoin Core has just been fixed which could have
crashed a huge chunk of the Bitcoin network if
exploited by any rogue miners," Cobra Bitcoin tweeted .
Such issues were more common in the early years of
bitcoin, which was launched in 2009 following the
publication of a whitepaper by its pseudonymous
creator Satoshi Nakamoto.
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