Time Warp Attack And It's Negative Effects On The Blockchain Network

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The blockchain technology is one of the most significant digital technological innovations in the last twenty years, the blockchain technology with its advanced features and characteristics over the years has facilitated the growth and development of many sectors and industries in the world who are smart enough to adopt and implement them.

Basically, by providing a decentralized and more secure way in which transactions can be executed and processed and with reduced risk of compromise although the risk reduced is still present in blockchain technology and its based network as a result of certain imperfections and flaws, an example of this risk is the Time warp attack.

The time warp attack is basically a very advance, complex and sophisticated form of attack that can have very very significant and cascading effects, in this post of mine I will be explaining and discussing some of the significant effects and ways in which the time swap attack is likely to disrupt the operations and functions of the blockchain network.

DISRUPTION OF CONSENSUS MECHANISMS

Time warp attacks if successfully launched on a blockchain network has the potential to seriously and significantly disrupt the activities and operations of the blockchain networks consensus mechanisms wether it is the proof of work consensus mechanism or the proof of stake consensus mechanism, any of these two consensus mechanism play a very very important role in blockchain networks.

Blockchain networks basically relies and depends on the consensus mechanism in order to validate and verify the authenticity of transactions create new blocks and mint new cryptocurrency tokens, and to perform or carry out all these essential and important task and roles in the blockchain network, the consensus mechanisms require and depend on accurate time records.

Therefore, owing to measure of relevance of accurate and correct time records to the proper and effective operation and functioning of the consensus mechanisms, attackers then manipulates and alter the timestamps of blocks and as a result causing disruptions in consensus among nodes which further or ultimately leads to the creation of invalid blocks and double spending attacks etc.

MANIPULATION OF BLOCK MINING DIFFICULTY

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Block mining difficulty can simply be defined or said to be the measure of how hard or it is, or how difficult in the blockchain network it can be to find a valid hash value to use in the creation of a new block in a blockchain network the block mining difficulty was basically programmed and designed to automatically change periodically based on the time it took to mine previous blocks so as to ensure consistency in the rate at which new blocks are created, eliminating the advantage of using more computing power.

The time warp attack tends to target the mechanisms that controls the block mining difficulty, it does this by basically altering and manipulating the timestamps which recorded or assigned each block that is created and that way, the algorithm or mechanism controlling the block mining difficulty will not have the accurate time and rate at which new block is being created.

NETWORK INSTABILITY AND FORKING

Forks can simply be defined or said to be the state where there are two block chains for one blockchain network or system causing conflicts and inconsitency of the state of the network and basically, another very very significant effect of the time warp attack on blockchain networks is that it has the potential and can facilitate the creation of forks and as a result leading to the instability of the blockchain networks.

Attackers can destabilize blockchain network and create forks by basically manipulating timestamps, disrupting the consensus mechanism, which leads and causes nodes to disagree on the correct state of the blockchain network hence, a fork is created, operating in contrast to the original block chain.

Owing to the fact that for forks to occur, different part of the blockchain network has to start operating in divergence, this divergence can cause a major confusion seeig as different parts of the network cannot tell which of the different part or blockchain is valid or not and as a result making the network less reliable and creating opportunities for other attacks which aims to take advantage of the confused state of the blockchain network.

EROSION OF TRUST AND DESTRUCTION OF REPUTATION

Cryotographic attacks in any format or type or mode of operation that successfully attempts to compromise and exploit the vulnerabilities in the blockchain network usually comes with practically the same effects and consequences which all boils down to diminishing and destroying the reputation of the blockchain network and trust in which its users and participants have in the network.

These attacks basically shows and represents the blockchain technology and its based networks as being unable to ensure and provide security to its users hence, leading to the erosion of trust and confidence which can have long lasting effects, as users may choose to totally abandon the compromised and affected blockchain or even the entire blockchain based networks.

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CONCLUSION

In conclusion, in this post I have been able to explain and discuss some of the very very significant effects and consequences of the time warp attack on blockchain networks, thank you all my fellow stemit bloggers for reading, do have a lovely day.