Discovering the new serious security vulnerability of Bitcoin can cause the whole system to crash

Recently, Bitcoin Core developers - the main support software for Bitcoin's blockchain - discovered a critical security hole of Bitcoin, even more dangerous than the 51% attack, which could make The whole system of this type of cryptocurrency collapsed.

Emin Gün Sirer, a professor at Cornell University, said that for about $ 80,000 (12.5 Bitcoin) for creating a block, hackers could knock down the entire Bitcoin system, much cheaper than the cost of make a 51% attack on Bitcoin's blockchain.

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Discovering the new serious security vulnerability of Bitcoin can cause the whole system to crash Picture 1

This vulnerability lies in Bitcoin Core support software, not in Bitcoin's Blockchain, so some other crypto currencies using this software are also affected.

According to researchers' reports, this vulnerability allows hackers to add malicious code to blocks (created by making multiple spending transactions with the same amount of Bitcoin). After that, the hacker will send malicious code around the Bitcoin network and the software of any miner who receives it will be corrupted.

Bitcoin's blockchain is a peer-to-peer network, based on nodes. All of these nodes correspond to the miners, responsible for confirming whether the transaction is valid and merging them into the new block.

Each miner corresponds to a node on Bitcoin's Blockchain, is responsible for confirming whether the transaction is valid and merging them into the new block.

Currently Bitcoin Core software is being used by about 95% of miners. With the side hole on any node will be completely destroyed when sticking the malicious code block instead of refusing to confirm the invalid transaction. And the worst thing that can happen is that the entire blockchain system of Bitcoin will collapse.

However, Professor Sirer said, this blockchain system can still be restored but takes a lot of time and there will be many other problems.

This security vulnerability is assessed as one of the most serious errors ever discovered by Bitcoin systems. Fortunately, a patch for this software has been released by Bitcoin Core developers.

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