Blocking Messages in Crypto P2P Networks Without Changing Data

We all know crypto relies on peer to peer networks to keep everything running smoothly. If nodes can't share fresh messages, the whole system grinds to a halt. I recently came across a research paper that looks at how sneaky attackers can cause message blackouts. Surprisingly, they can do this without forging or altering a single piece of data.

The researchers set out to test the robustness of GossipSub and DOG, which are gossip protocols used by networks like Ethereum and CometBFT. They wanted to see if bad actors could ruin network liveness by simply stopping honest nodes from receiving fresh messages. For GossipSub, they showed that an attacker running a constant number of fast, distributed nodes can manipulate peer scoring to isolate a constant fraction of honest nodes. For DOG, they discovered simple cases where route filtering breaks the network even without any bad behavior. They also designed an attack on DOG using a single physical node with a constant number of identities to block every forwarding route. Finally, the team verified this DOG attack in a simulated network while analyzing its cost, assumptions and mitigations.

Curious about the details? Look up Attacking P2P Networks: Liveness Attacks on the GossipSub and DOG Gossip Protocols at arxiv.org/abs/2611.03509. The authors are Jiaheng Li, Anton Paramonov and Yann Vonlanthen.

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The cover image was generated by AI.