If you thought Bitcoin mining was only about making money, think again.
A newly disclosed vulnerability threatens to bring down Bitcoin nodes for the inexpensive price of 0.14 BTC.
Yes, for less than a single block reward, hackers can crash your node and perhaps take your cryptocurrency.
This severe Denial-of-Service (DoS) vulnerability, discovered by Bitcoin Core engineers, affects around 17% of the network.
It's a dream come true for unscrupulous miners wanting to eliminate their competitors.
What's the trick? Exploit Bitcoin nodes running versions prior to 24.0.1 by bombarding them with low-difficulty header chains.
Leading the nodes to download a large amount of useless data and finally crash. Who knew it was so cheap to ruin someone's day?
For hackers, it's simple—and it used to be even easier. Back in 2019, this attack would have cost 4.12 BTC.
By February 2022, the price had fallen to 1.07 BTC. In September 2024, all it takes is 0.14 BTC to initiate this attack, leaving Bitcoin miners wishing they had updated their software.
But why would someone do this? So, it's all about competitiveness.
Attackers can exploit this vulnerability to crash nodes in other mining pools, lowering the total network hash rate and thus the mining difficulty.
When the difficulty drops, attackers can swoop in, mine fresh blocks with ease, and collect the prizes. It's filthy, sneaky, and happening right now.
Fortunately, Bitcoin Core developers were fast to respond with a solution. The new upgrade requires nodes to check the legality of a chain's work before storing it, effectively eliminating this cheap method.
But here's the catch: if you're still using an older version, you're basically inviting hackers to crash your node and steal your cryptocurrency.
So, if you're mining on anything before 24.0.1, it's time to update. Because, in the Bitcoin world, nothing says “you're next” like a 0.14 BTC DoS attack.