3.3.6 Transaction Attacks

Transaction Attacks

1. Double-Spending:

   • Mechanism: A double-spend attack happens when a malicious actor spends the same cryptocurrency more than once by broadcasting conflicting transactions to different parts of the network.

   • Impact: This attack undermines the trust in the blockchain’s transaction ledger, as it makes it appear that the attacker has more funds than they actually do.

2. Transaction Malleability:

   • Mechanism: In this attack, an attacker modifies the transaction signature before it is confirmed in the blockchain, changing the transaction hash while leaving the transaction contents intact.

   • Impact: The altered transaction may be accepted by the network, causing issues like double-spending or invalidating other dependent transactions.

https://cdn-blog.getastra.com/2021/08/How-Blockchain-Works.png

Prevention:

• Double-Spending: This can be mitigated through the use of confirmation rules and waiting for multiple confirmations on the blockchain before considering a transaction as final.

• Transaction Malleability: Segregated Witness (SegWit), digital signatures, and transaction hash protection reduce the risk of transaction malleability attacks.