Hacking, Distributed

How the Bitfinex Heist Could Have Been Avoided

bitcoin vaults security August 03, 2016 at 07:20 AM Emin Gün Sirer

The Bitfinex attack, and similar heists from Bitcoin exchanges, are preventable with a small extension to Bitcoin.

Graph Databases: Dataflow vs. Traditional Models

graph stores weaver July 27, 2016 at 11:14 AM Ayush Dubey, Robert Escriva, and Emin Gün Sirer

Our thoughts on using differential dataflow to implement database functionality such as lookups and transactions.

How the Ethereum Hard Fork Can Fail

dao ethereum July 19, 2016 at 06:15 PM Emin Gün Sirer

The Ethereum hard fork is in a few days. Having looked at the proposed hard fork code, I discuss what I believe is the weakest part of the HF code.

Cross-Chain Replay Attacks

dao ethereum July 17, 2016 at 12:07 PM Emin Gün Sirer

Following a hard fork, there will be two chains. In cross-chain replay attacks, one can attack a smart contract by moving transactions from one chain to the other. Post describes a potential attack.

Reentrancy Woes in Smart Contracts

ethereum smart contracts July 13, 2016 at 10:45 AM Emin Gün Sirer

Reentrancy bugs are difficult to catch. This distilled, illustrative example shows how even a diligently-written contract with invariant checks can go wrong.

A Decentralized Escape Hatch for DAOs

ethereum smart contracts July 11, 2016 at 02:42 PM Ittay Eyal and Emin Gün Sirer

We describe a general Decentralized Escape Hatch mechanism, suitable for DAOs and other smart contracts.

Ethereum is Inherently Secure Against Censorship

ethereum smart contracts July 05, 2016 at 01:14 PM Tjaden Hess, River Keefer, and Emin Gün Sirer

Our discovery of a DoS vulnerability in Ethereum turns out to be a point of strength and censorship resistence for the currency.

Ethereum's DAO Wars Soft Fork is a Potential DoS Vector

ethereum dao June 28, 2016 at 09:22 AM Tjaden Hess, River Keefer, and Emin Gün Sirer

We identify a DoS vulnerability with Ethereum's proposed soft-fork for The DAO, and urge the community to be prepared for attacks, and to speed up the timetable for resolving the hard fork decision.