Yeah sorry I meant that.
So basically the entire network is vulnerable to a massive ddos attack, isn't it? If so, how can DASH be an alternative to the known payment processors if it can be taken down anytime? I am just wondering.
As far as I know it has been a huge problem for the BTC network.
Massive DDoS attacks on XT users
Despite the news blockade, within a few days of launching Bitcoin XT around 15% of all network nodes were running it, and at least one mining pool had started offering BIP101 voting to miners.
That’s when the denial of service attacks started. The attacks were so large that they disconnected entire regions from the internet:
“I was DDos’d. It was a massive DDoS that took down my entire (rural) ISP. Everyone in five towns lost their internet service for several hours last summer because of these criminals. It definitely discouraged me from hosting nodes.”
In other cases, entire datacenters were disconnected from the internet until the single XT node inside them was stopped. About a third of the nodes were attacked and removed from the internet in this way.
Worse, the mining pool that had been offering BIP101 was also attacked and forced to stop. The message was clear: anyone who supported bigger blocks, or even allowed other people to vote for them, would be assaulted.
The attackers are still out there. When Coinbase, months after the launch, announced they had finally lost patience with Core and would run XT, they too were forced offline for a while.
Good question. All I can say is that a DDoS is not rocket science. We have never suffered such affliction. A proper MN will only have one port open and hosted with a company that offers good DDoS protection. Obviously, if you go with the lowest end of server boxes you'll probably be more exposed. Even still, I've never heard of any problems since day 1.
Regarding network security, I pretty sure we're safe. In the same sense, any full node is prone to DDoS, and we're almost surpassing BTC's node count with masternodes alone!
In any case, Masternodes serve the network an extra purpose, so quite a valid question.
What happens if a Masternode is DDOS'ed?
The DarkSend solution is fault resistant. Non-operating masternodes are removed from the list of masternodes and DarkSend continues through the functional nodes.
http://en.wiki.dashninja.pl/wiki/FAQ#What_happens_if_a_Masternode_is_DDOS.27ed.3F