Exploiting Centrality: Attacks in Payment Channel Networks with Local Routing

Speaker: Ben Weintraub , Northeastern University

Date: Thursday, February 04, 2021

Time: 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM Note: all times are in the Eastern Time Zone

Public: Yes

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Event Type: Seminar

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Host: Srini Devadas

Contact: Kyle L Hogan, klhogan@csail.mit.edu

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Reminders to: seminars@csail.mit.edu, ben@weintraub.xyz

Reminder Subject: TALK: Exploiting Centrality: Attacks in Payment Channel Networks with Local Routing

Abstract: Payment channel networks (PCN) enable scalable blockchain transactions without fundamentally changing the underlying distributed ledger algorithm. Routing a payment via multiple channels in a PCN requires locking collateral for potentially long periods of time. Adversaries can abuse this mechanism to conduct denial-of-service attacks. Previous work focused on source routing, which is unlikely to remain a viable routing approach as these networks grow.
In this work, we examine the effectiveness of attacks in PCNs that use routing algorithms based on local knowledge, where compromised intermediate nodes can delay or drop transactions to create denial-of-service. We focus on SpeedyMurmurs as a representative of such protocols. We identify two attacker node selection strategies; one based on the position in the routing tree, and the other on betweenness centrality. Our simulation- driven study shows that they are both very effective. The attacks, however, are much less effective in less centralized networks. To this end, we discuss incentives for constructing such topologies.

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Research Areas:
Security & Cryptography, Systems & Networking

Impact Areas:
Cybersecurity

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Created by Kyle L Hogan Email at Tuesday, February 02, 2021 at 4:07 PM.