Monero network attacked to obtain information about users

Monero blockchain was attacked - attacker tried to obtain information about network users. Monero project manager Ricardo Spagni said, that the attack was ineffective.

According to information posted on Reddit, a group of "actively controlled" malicious узлов пыталась нарушить работу сети Monero с помощью атаки Сивиллы – спам-атаки, which fills the network with fake accounts. The attack continued for the last 10 days, and the nodes were blacklisted.

«Недавно в значительной степени некомпетентный злоумышленник попытался провести атаку Сивиллы на Monero, trying to match transactions to host IP, who broadcasts them ", - wrote on the social network Twitter Riccardo Spagni (Riccardo Spagni).

Attack, which, according to Spagni, не повлияла ни на один из механизмов конфиденциальности Monero, can be conducted against almost any cryptocurrency. Но высокий уровень конфиденциальности Monero означает, that those, who is trying to watch the network, much more effort is needed.

Malicious nodes, involved in this attack, have demonstrated at least six forms of abnormal behavior, including active introduction into the lists of honest sites; exploiting the error, which increased the likelihood of malicious nodes getting into the list of friendly nodes; as well as deliberate refusal to broadcast transactions to the network.

Finally, these malicious hosts recorded IP addresses and tried to associate them with certain transactions. Nonetheless, у Monero было встроенное решение – протокол Dandelion++, who made this tactic much less effective, what it could be otherwise.

Dandelion ++ support was added to Monero this spring. The protocol distributes transactions on the network in this way, so that it is impossible to trace the origin of the transaction and go to a specific IP address.

"This attack, being innovative in the sense, what constitutes a live Sibyl attack on the network, was just not big enough, to be effective against Dandelion ++ ", - said Spagni, adding, that "an attacker would have to launch many thousands more nodes".

However, Dandelion ++ is not a guaranteed solution to all problems.. Spagni said, that this software must be effective against accidental monitoring, and it is “not meant for, to prevent a persistent and sophisticated attacker from organizing a Sibyl attack ".

The attack on Monero was not large enough, to give Dandelion ++ a lot of problems, but helped the developers learn some useful lessons. "It's important to know, that Sibyl's attacks can be more sophisticated and less clumsy, than this ", - wrote Spagni.