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Risk of Asynchronous Protocol Update: Attacks to Monero Protocols

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Information Security and Privacy (ACISP 2019)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNSC,volume 11547))

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Abstract

In a cryptocurrency system, the protocol incorporated in the node application runs without human intervention. Cryptographic techniques are implemented to determine the ownership of the coins; they enable the owners to transfer the ownership of the coins to other users. Consensus protocols are employed to determine the source of the truth of the information contained in the public ledger called blockchain. When the protocol needs to be updated, all nodes need to replace the application with the newest release. We explore an event where an asynchronous protocol update opens a vulnerability in Monero nodes which have not yet updated to the newest software version. We show that a Denial of Service attack can be launched against the nodes running the outdated protocol, where the attack significantly reduces the system’ performance. We also show that an attacker, given a sufficient access to cryptocurrency services, is able to utilise the Denial of Service attack to launch a traceability attack.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Based on Coinmarketcap.com as of 4 February 2019.

  2. 2.

    https://monero-original.org.

  3. 3.

    http://monero-classic.org.

  4. 4.

    https://monero0.org.

  5. 5.

    As of 12 February 2019, no cryptocurrency exchange trades XMO. However, the market price history provided by Coinmarketcap.com shows that XMO were traded until 1 February 2019. Based on Coinmarketcap.com, XMC is currently available in Gate.io, HitBTC, and TradeOgre.

  6. 6.

    According to Monero0.org, the Monero0 nodes are: 159.65.227.38, 167.99.96.174, 159.65.113.142. Based on our investigation, all of these nodes were no longer accessible as of early February 2019.

  7. 7.

    https://github.com/monero-project/monero/pull/3205.

  8. 8.

    The open source software is available in Monero’s Github page https://github.com/monero-project/monero.

  9. 9.

    https://github.com/moneroexamples/onion-monero-blockchain-explorer.

  10. 10.

    https://github.com/shoupn/moneropy.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

    Dimaz Ankaa Wijaya, Joseph K. Liu & Ron Steinfeld

  2. Data61, CSIRO, Sydney, Australia

    Dongxi Liu

Authors
  1. Dimaz Ankaa Wijaya
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  2. Joseph K. Liu
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  4. Dongxi Liu
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Correspondence to Dimaz Ankaa Wijaya .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

    Julian Jang-Jaccard

  2. University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, Australia

    Fuchun Guo

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Wijaya, D.A., Liu, J.K., Steinfeld, R., Liu, D. (2019). Risk of Asynchronous Protocol Update: Attacks to Monero Protocols. In: Jang-Jaccard, J., Guo, F. (eds) Information Security and Privacy. ACISP 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11547. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21548-4_17

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21548-4_17

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