Bitcoin Core developers report a DoS attack risk for 17% of the network

The current Bitcoin Core 27.1 version includes this and other bug fixes

20.09.2024 - 14:35

2 min

What’s new? Bitcoin Core developers have issued a warning about a serious software bug affecting 17% of the network. All software released before Bitcoin Core 24.0.1 is at risk, the bug allows attackers to trigger a node failure by artificially creating an overload.

Material by Protos

What else is known? In the public domain, there are several known ways to exploit this bug, while it would not bring potential attackers much financial gain.

Thus, the failure can be provoked by forcing nodes to download and store extremely long chains of block headers (Block Header), but this operation would cost a hacker a lot.

It is possible that the bug could be exploited by a wealthy and powerful individual or even a government seeking to disrupt the bitcoin blockchain for ideological and other non-financial reasons.

If bitcoin node operators do not update their software, up to 17% of the network could be at risk of a denial-of-service (DoS) attack.

The developers fixed this bug in Bitcoin Core pull request (PR) number 25717 on December 12, 2022, with the release of version 24.0.1. The current Bitcoin Core version level 27.1 includes this and other bug fixes.

The Bitcoin Core project supports software running on 98% full nodes.

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According to the company’s experts, it is being used by hackers from the DPRK

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