For the cryptocurrency Ethereum Classic (ETC), which ranks 16th among cryptocurrencies in terms of abbreviations (not to be confused with the more popular Ethereum / ETH), a successful double attack was officially registered and confirmed.
Currently, 20 successful blockchain reorganizations have been identified, allowing a double spending of funds in the amount of 219500 ETC, which corresponds to approximately $ 1.1 million.
What caused this problem?
The division of the blockchain was made possible because the attackers were able to gain access to the resources.
Which provided 51% of the total mining power available on the Ethereum Classic network and allowed the forks of the blockchain to form with the parallel alignment of alternative blockchains.
The essence of the attack on double waste of funds is due to the fact that after sending funds for the exchange.
The attacker waits for enough commit blocks to accumulate for the first transaction with the transfer, and the exchange considers the transfer to be perfect.
The attacker then, using the presence of the prevailing computing power, transfers an alternate branch of the blockchain with a conflicting transaction and a larger number of confirmed blocks to the network.
As in the case of a conflict between the branches, a longer branch is recognized as the primary, the alternate network accepted by the attacker is accepted by the network as the primary.
Accordingly, the first party on the basis of which the exchange has already made a transfer transaction, is discarded and a party in which the transfer to the exchange has not been completed is accepted.
Y the money remains in the original wallet and is available to be transferred to a second exchange for another exchange.
In the last few days, a total of approximately 100 blockchain reorganization attempts have been revealed on Ethereum Classic, of which at least 20 were successful.
Before the situation is resolved and the security of the Ethereum Classic network is ensured, many exchanges, including Coinbase and Kraken, temporarily suspended processing of payments in ETC coins or significantly increased the number of confirmed blocks required for transfer.
As we can see in the coin base blog, a record of the movements has already been made:
On 1/5/2019, Coinbase detected a deep shakeup of the Ethereum Classic blockchain that included double spending. In order to protect customer funds, we immediately stopped interactions with the ETC blockchain.
Updated Jan 7, 10:27 pm PT: As of this writing, we have identified a total of 15 reorganizations, 12 of which contained double spending, totaling 219,500 FTE (~ $ 1.1M). You can see the article at this link.
The attacks continue
Currently, the attack is not blocked and efforts continue to create new ones (three new ones were registered today).
While the operation of the network will not be stabilized by exchanges and mining pools, it is recommended to increase the number of confirmation blocks to 400-4000 (Confirmation can take from several hours to a day).
It is suspected that farms with new specialized ASICs were used for the attack.
To be clear, we are not making any attempt to hide or minimize recent events. Facts are facts and as the situation unfolds, we will soon get a complete picture of what really happened.
Linzhi is testing ASICS. Coinbase reported double spending; both can be true. In time we will see.
To be clear we are making no attempt to hide or downplay recent events.
Facts are facts and as the situation develops we'll soon get a full picture of what actually took place.
Linzhi is testing ASICS. Coinbase reported double spends; both may be true.In time we will see. https://t.co/bbq6eqIoiS
- Ethereum Classic (@eth_classic) January 7, 2019
Moment additional investigation is underway on the addresses sending the transactions that are generating this conflict, as well as the history of sending and receiving from the addresses.
Blocking fields such as the timestamp and subsequent movement of the miner rewards from the attack blocks can shed light on the person or group behind this threat and these attacks.
The original concept of cryptocurrency has been misrepresented since its inception. A wonderful invention that was born as a definitive solution to the global scam that means in our lives, banks and the monetization of absolutely everything. But he finally fell into the trap of having a nominal value, that people start buying it through the currency exchange, and that it finally becomes part of the system. Don't be surprised that those who carry out these massive attacks and "thefts" are the inventors themselves, rebelling against the form their original work has taken.