Asymmetric Mempool DoS Security: Formal Definitions and Provable Secure Designs

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2407.03543v2
• Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2024 20:52:28 GMT
• Title: Asymmetric Mempool DoS Security: Formal Definitions and Provable Secure Designs
• Abstract summary: This paper introduces secure blockchain-mempool designs capable of defending against any form of asymmetric eviction DoS attacks. Our proposed secure transaction admission algorithm, named textscsaferAd-CP, ensures eviction-security by providing a provable lower bound on the cost of executing eviction DoS attacks.
• Score: 17.06992341258962
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Abstract: The mempool plays a crucial role in blockchain systems as a buffer zone for pending transactions before they are executed and included in a block. However, existing works primarily focus on mitigating defenses against already identified real-world attacks. This paper introduces secure blockchain-mempool designs capable of defending against any form of asymmetric eviction DoS attacks. We establish formal security definitions for mempools under the eviction-based attack vector. Our proposed secure transaction admission algorithm, named \textsc{saferAd-CP}, ensures eviction-security by providing a provable lower bound on the cost of executing eviction DoS attacks. Through evaluation with real transaction trace replays, \textsc{saferAd-CP} demonstrates negligible latency and significantly high lower bounds against any eviction attack, highlighting its effectiveness and robustness in securing blockchain mempools.

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