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A Security Problem in Small Scale Private Ethereum Network

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Blockchain and Trustworthy Systems (BlockSys 2020)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 1267))

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Abstract

Ethereum is taken as the representative of the 2nd generation of blockchain system, and has been widely used in many applications. Different from Bitcoin system, Ethereum introduces the concept of account, so that the balance inquiry and transaction validation could be performed with lower complexity. Since the information of each account is not stored in the blockchain but in the local database, it is prone to be modified. This paper studied the balance inquiry process in Ethereum based on the source code, and found that the balance of an account could be easily modified, and the value will not be validated based on the state root in the block header when used for transaction validation. Tests based on a small scale private Ethereum network show that if the balance of an account is modified in the database on all participating nodes, the invalid transaction based on the modified balance would be taken as a valid one and packed in the blockchain. This could be a big problem for the application where a private blockchain is built based on Ethereum with small number of nodes.

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Acknowledgments

This work is supported by the Tianjin Natural Science Foundation (19JCYBJC15700).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Electrical and Information Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China

    Zhen Gao, Dongbin Zhang & Jiuzhi Zhang

Authors
  1. Zhen Gao
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  2. Dongbin Zhang
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  3. Jiuzhi Zhang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zhen Gao .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China

    Zibin Zheng

  2. Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau, China

    Hong-Ning Dai

  3. Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming, China

    Xiaodong Fu

  4. Dali University, Dali, China

    Benhui Chen

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Gao, Z., Zhang, D., Zhang, J. (2020). A Security Problem in Small Scale Private Ethereum Network. In: Zheng, Z., Dai, HN., Fu, X., Chen, B. (eds) Blockchain and Trustworthy Systems. BlockSys 2020. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1267. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9213-3_18

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9213-3_18

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-15-9212-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-15-9213-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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