A Survey on Consensus Protocols and Attacks on Blockchain Technology

In the current era, blockchain has approximately 30 consensus algorithms. This architecturally distributed database stores data in an encrypted form with multiple checks, including elliptical curve cryptography (ECC) and Merkle hash tree. Additionally, many researchers aim to implement a public key infrastructure (PKI) cryptography mechanism to boost the security of blockchain-based data management. However, the issue is that many of these are required for advanced cryptographic protocols. For all consensus protocols, security features are required to be discussed because these consensus algorithms have recently been attacked by address resolution protocols (ARP), distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS), and sharding attacks in a permission-less blockchain. The existence of a byzantine adversary is perilous, and is involved in these ongoing attacks. Considering the above issues, we conducted an informative survey based on the consensus protocol attack on blockchain through the latest published article from IEEE, Springer, Elsevier, ACM, Willy, Hindawi, and other publishers. We incorporate various methods involved in blockchain. Our main intention is to gain clarity from earlier published articles to elaborate numerous key methods in terms of a survey article.

Automated summary

In the current era, blockchain has a wide range of consensus algorithms and employs encryption methods such as ECC and Merkle hash tree. Researchers also explore PKI cryptography to enhance blockchain data security. However, there is a need to address the security vulnerabilities, including attacks from ARP, DDoS, and sharding in permission-less blockchains. The presence of a byzantine adversary poses a serious threat. Therefore, it is important to conduct informative surveys and research to understand and mitigate these consensus protocol attacks on blockchain.