Contra-∗: Mechanisms for countering spam attacks on blockchain's memory pools
- Authors
- Saad, M.; Kim, J.; Nyang, D.; Mohaisen, D.
- Issue Date
- 1-4월-2021
- Publisher
- Academic Press
- Keywords
- Blockchains; DDoS attacks; Memory pool
- Citation
- Journal of Network and Computer Applications, v.179
- Indexed
- SCIE
SCOPUS
- Journal Title
- Journal of Network and Computer Applications
- Volume
- 179
- URI
- https://scholar.korea.ac.kr/handle/2021.sw.korea/128970
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.jnca.2020.102971
- ISSN
- 1084-8045
- Abstract
- Blockchain-based cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, have seen on the rise in their popularity and value, making them a target to several forms of Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks, and calling for a better understanding of their attack surface from both security and distributed systems standpoints. In this paper, and in the pursuit of understanding the attack surface of blockchains, we explore a new form of attack that can be carried out on the memory pools (mempools), and mainly targets blockchain-based cryptocurrencies. We study this attack on Bitcoin's mempool and explore the attack's effects on transactions fee paid by benign users. To counter this attack, this paper further proposes Contra-∗, a set of countermeasures utilizing fee, age, and size (thus, Contra-F, Contra-A, and Contra-S) as prioritization mechanisms. Contra-∗ optimize the mempool size and help in countering the effects of DoS attacks due to spam transactions. We evaluate Contra-∗ by simulations and analyze their effectiveness under various attack conditions. © 2021 Elsevier Ltd
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