There are many myths associated with blockchain technology but the biggest one is that it is completely invulnerable to DDoS attacks. But this is not the case, blockchain is quite vulnerable to DDoS attacks. Along with this, let us also try to know what a DDoS attack is in the blockchain. A distributed denial of service DDoS attack on a blockchain occurs only when the blockchain’s clients are unable to send new transactions and add them to newly generated blocks. This is an attack that targets more than one layer of the blockchain. If you are planning to trade Bitcoin, you must choose the best platform such as BitQZ app.
In this blog, we will discuss what is the main reason why DDoS attacks happen on blockchain and how and why they are happening. Next, we’ll explore some types of blockchain DDoS attacks as well as design cow issues, here are the exploits for each attack. Moreover, we will also provide real examples of all those attacks, so if you are also interested in that, you will have to keep reading this blog.
What is DDoS Attack in Blockchain?
DDoS (Distributed denial of service) attacks in blockchain are only observed when the transactions sent by the clients connected to the blockchain are unable to connect to them. One of the biggest myths that remain in the blockchain is that it is immune to DDoS (Distributed Deny of Service) attacks. This is a myth that has been brought from the blockchain design and can only confuse you. Blockchain technology is based on only one fact and that is that it is connected to many powerful computer networks and can only do one thing at a time. This architecture only defends blockchain networks against conventional DDoS (Distributed Deny of Service), which aims to overwhelm a server’s network traffic and prohibit it from servicing other clients. Furthermore, DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks can impact many OSI model levels even in conventional networks.
Types of DDoS attacks on Blockchain
The new whole layer of the blockchain network is targeted by DDoS attacks. But some of those attacks are such that they can be launched even without technical skills. Here you will learn about the types of blockchain DDoS attacks:
Protocol-based Blockchain DDoS Attack
This protocol-based attack is observed only when the transaction mempool is saturated with another (fake transaction) transaction. The transaction mempool, which is a type of transaction that has this limited memory and is already verified, may have to wait to be included in the block. The size of the block can be included with the blockchain after the interval, if the transaction is not included in the block its memory zone is temporarily stored with the next block. A large number of fake transactions are sent to the blockchain by the attacker to exploit the behaviour and at the same time attempt to make its network unavailable.
DApp-Based Blockchain DDoS attack
This decentralized app-based DDoS attack is only visible when it consumes gas to complete smart contract execution running with the blockchain. All smart contracts that run with the blockchain require a finite amount of gas that is used to run properly. For a smart contract to properly complete its activities, an individual must also set a predetermined gas limit while attempting to run one. The transaction is reversed but the gas also isn’t refunded if the user-specified gas is used up prior to the smart contract and correctly completes its execution. There are some cases where some behaviour is presented regardless of the gas limit by users, which is one of the main reasons that lead to DoS attacks. This kind of attack may be caused by a smart contract issue and may be started purposefully by either an attacker or unintentionally following a user action.