Power adjusting and bribery racing: Novel mining attacks in the Bitcoin system

Shang Gao; Zecheng Li; Zhe Peng; Bin Xiao

doi:10.1145/3319535.3354203

Power adjusting and bribery racing: Novel mining attacks in the Bitcoin system

Shang Gao, Zecheng Li, Zhe Peng, Bin Xiao

Department of Computer Science

Research output: Chapter in book/report/conference proceeding › Conference proceeding › peer-review

59 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Mining attacks allow attackers to gain an unfair share of the mining reward by deviating from the honest mining strategy in the Bitcoin system. Among the most well-known are block withholding (BWH), fork after withholding (FAW), and selfish mining. In this paper, we propose two new strategies: power adjusting and bribery racing, and introduce two novel mining attacks, Power Adjusting Withholding (PAW) and Bribery Selfish Mining (BSM) adopting the new strategies. Both attacks can increase the reward of attackers. Furthermore, we show PAW can avoid the “miner's dilemma” in BWH attacks. BSM introduces a new “venal miner's dilemma”, which results in all targets (bribes) willing to help the attacker but getting less reward finally. Quantitative analyses and simulations are conducted to verify the effectiveness of our attacks. We propose some countermeasures to mitigate the new attacks, but a practical and efficient solution remains to be an open problem.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	CCS '19: Proceedings of the 2019 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Pages	833-850
Number of pages	18
ISBN (Print)	9781450367479
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/3319535.3354203
Publication status	Published - 6 Nov 2019
Event	26th ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security, CCS 2019 - London, United Kingdom Duration: 11 Nov 2019 → 15 Nov 2019 https://dl.acm.org/doi/proceedings/10.1145/3319535

Publication series

Name	Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security
ISSN (Print)	1543-7221

Conference

Conference	26th ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security, CCS 2019
Country/Territory	United Kingdom
City	London
Period	11/11/19 → 15/11/19
Internet address	https://dl.acm.org/doi/proceedings/10.1145/3319535

Scopus Subject Areas

Software
Computer Networks and Communications

User-Defined Keywords

Bitcoin
Block withholding
Blockchain
Bribery attack
Fork after withholding
Mining attacks
Selfish mining

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

10.1145/3319535.3354203

Cite this

Gao, S., Li, Z., Peng, Z., & Xiao, B. (2019). Power adjusting and bribery racing: Novel mining attacks in the Bitcoin system. In CCS '19: Proceedings of the 2019 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security (pp. 833-850). (Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security). Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). https://doi.org/10.1145/3319535.3354203

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title = "Power adjusting and bribery racing: Novel mining attacks in the Bitcoin system",

abstract = "Mining attacks allow attackers to gain an unfair share of the mining reward by deviating from the honest mining strategy in the Bitcoin system. Among the most well-known are block withholding (BWH), fork after withholding (FAW), and selfish mining. In this paper, we propose two new strategies: power adjusting and bribery racing, and introduce two novel mining attacks, Power Adjusting Withholding (PAW) and Bribery Selfish Mining (BSM) adopting the new strategies. Both attacks can increase the reward of attackers. Furthermore, we show PAW can avoid the “miner's dilemma” in BWH attacks. BSM introduces a new “venal miner's dilemma”, which results in all targets (bribes) willing to help the attacker but getting less reward finally. Quantitative analyses and simulations are conducted to verify the effectiveness of our attacks. We propose some countermeasures to mitigate the new attacks, but a practical and efficient solution remains to be an open problem.",

keywords = "Bitcoin, Block withholding, Blockchain, Bribery attack, Fork after withholding, Mining attacks, Selfish mining",

author = "Shang Gao and Zecheng Li and Zhe Peng and Bin Xiao",

note = "Funding Information: We gratefully acknowledge Tao Lu from Erasmus University for helpful technical discussions about conditional expectation. This research is partially supported by HK RGC GRF PolyU 152124/19E and HK ITF ITS/081/18. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2019 Association for Computing Machinery.; 26th ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security, CCS 2019 ; Conference date: 11-11-2019 Through 15-11-2019",

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Gao, S, Li, Z, Peng, Z & Xiao, B 2019, Power adjusting and bribery racing: Novel mining attacks in the Bitcoin system. in CCS '19: Proceedings of the 2019 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security. Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), pp. 833-850, 26th ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security, CCS 2019, London, United Kingdom, 11/11/19. https://doi.org/10.1145/3319535.3354203

Power adjusting and bribery racing: Novel mining attacks in the Bitcoin system. / Gao, Shang; Li, Zecheng; Peng, Zhe et al.
CCS '19: Proceedings of the 2019 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), 2019. p. 833-850 (Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security).

Research output: Chapter in book/report/conference proceeding › Conference proceeding › peer-review

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N1 - Funding Information: We gratefully acknowledge Tao Lu from Erasmus University for helpful technical discussions about conditional expectation. This research is partially supported by HK RGC GRF PolyU 152124/19E and HK ITF ITS/081/18. Publisher Copyright: © 2019 Association for Computing Machinery.

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N2 - Mining attacks allow attackers to gain an unfair share of the mining reward by deviating from the honest mining strategy in the Bitcoin system. Among the most well-known are block withholding (BWH), fork after withholding (FAW), and selfish mining. In this paper, we propose two new strategies: power adjusting and bribery racing, and introduce two novel mining attacks, Power Adjusting Withholding (PAW) and Bribery Selfish Mining (BSM) adopting the new strategies. Both attacks can increase the reward of attackers. Furthermore, we show PAW can avoid the “miner's dilemma” in BWH attacks. BSM introduces a new “venal miner's dilemma”, which results in all targets (bribes) willing to help the attacker but getting less reward finally. Quantitative analyses and simulations are conducted to verify the effectiveness of our attacks. We propose some countermeasures to mitigate the new attacks, but a practical and efficient solution remains to be an open problem.

AB - Mining attacks allow attackers to gain an unfair share of the mining reward by deviating from the honest mining strategy in the Bitcoin system. Among the most well-known are block withholding (BWH), fork after withholding (FAW), and selfish mining. In this paper, we propose two new strategies: power adjusting and bribery racing, and introduce two novel mining attacks, Power Adjusting Withholding (PAW) and Bribery Selfish Mining (BSM) adopting the new strategies. Both attacks can increase the reward of attackers. Furthermore, we show PAW can avoid the “miner's dilemma” in BWH attacks. BSM introduces a new “venal miner's dilemma”, which results in all targets (bribes) willing to help the attacker but getting less reward finally. Quantitative analyses and simulations are conducted to verify the effectiveness of our attacks. We propose some countermeasures to mitigate the new attacks, but a practical and efficient solution remains to be an open problem.

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Gao S, Li Z, Peng Z, Xiao B. Power adjusting and bribery racing: Novel mining attacks in the Bitcoin system. In CCS '19: Proceedings of the 2019 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). 2019. p. 833-850. (Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security). doi: 10.1145/3319535.3354203

Power adjusting and bribery racing: Novel mining attacks in the Bitcoin system

Abstract

Publication series

Conference

Scopus Subject Areas

User-Defined Keywords

UN SDGs

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