CVE Catalog

CVE-2017-9230

High
Published: Translated: NVD NIST

Summary

The Bitcoin Proof-of-Work algorithm does not consider a certain attack methodology related to 80-byte block headers, violating security assumptions regarding the evaluation difficulty of the Proof-of-Work function.

Risk Assessment

Organizations may be exposed to manipulations in the mining process, potentially leading to unfair practices within the Bitcoin network.

Recommendation

It is recommended to monitor updates regarding the Proof-of-Work algorithm and consider implementing additional security measures in Bitcoin-related systems.

Related vulnerabilities

Original NVD description (English source)

The Bitcoin Proof-of-Work algorithm does not consider a certain attack methodology related to 80-byte block headers with a variety of initial 64-byte chunks followed by the same 16-byte chunk, multiple candidate root values ending with the same 4 bytes, and calculations involving sqrt numbers. This violates the security assumptions of (1) the choice of input, outside of the dedicated nonce area, fed into the Proof-of-Work function should not change its difficulty to evaluate and (2) every Proof-of-Work function execution should be independent. NOTE: a number of persons feel that this methodology is a benign mining optimization, not a vulnerability

Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS