Ethereum's Peer-to-Peer Network Monitoring and Sybil Attack Prevention

【Author】 Eisenbarth, Jean-Philippe; Cholez, Thibault; Perrin, Olivier

【Source】JOURNAL OF NETWORK AND SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT

【影响因子】2.198

【Abstract】Public blockchains, like Ethereum, rely on an underlying peer-to-peer (P2P) network to disseminate transactions and blocks between nodes. With the rise of blockchain applications and cryptocurrencies values, they have become critical infrastructures which still lack comprehensive studies. In this paper, we propose to investigate the reliability of the Ethereum P2P network. We developed our own dependable crawler to collect information about the peers composing the network. Our data analysis regarding the geographical distribution of peers and the churn rate shows good network properties while the network can exhibit a sudden and major increase in size and peers are highly concentrated on a few ASes. In a second time, we investigate suspicious patterns that can denote a Sybil attack. We find that many nodes hold numerous identities in the network and could become a threat. To mitigate future Sybil attacks, we propose an architecture to detect suspicious nodes and revoke them. It is based on a monitoring system, a smart contract to propagate the information and an external revocation tool to help clients remove their connections to suspicious peers. Our experiment on Ethereum's Test network proved that our solution is effective.

【Keywords】Blockchain; Security; Network measurement; Distributed hash table

【发表时间】2022 OCT

【收录时间】2022-08-15

【文献类型】观点阐述

【主题类别】

区块链技术-核心技术-核心技术集