What stops Bitcoin from being hacked?

Dread Pirate Roberts

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Quote from: such_anon_32 on June 13, 2021, 03:54:48 PM

Hey, I am trying to determine how safe the Bitcoin network is. Is it possible for a person/government to spread a virus targeting all Bitcoin nodes, then be able to manipulate the network?

Although this would be difficult, couldn’t a government pull this off?

I still don't believe there is a way to brute forcing a wallet or just forcibly hacking a wallet. there must be a simple mistake by the owner of the wallet address and thats the way hackers get access of people personal data including address wallet. using the safety hardware the only option to avoid it any type of hacking.

clint25n

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When people say that their online accounts are "hacked", often what happens is that their email accounts are hacked, due to weak security. So for that we don't give our accounts to others because this is very dangerous for the security of the account.
even for those closest to

semobo

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Bitcoin is not under the control of anyone that is what stops anyone from hacking it, bitcoin nodes are everywhere and the only practical way to stop bitcoin is to stop the internet all around the world which is also impossible though so it means bitcoin can't be hacked but the price can be highly manipulated by the people who got influence and money.

worle1bm

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Quote from: such_anon_32 on June 13, 2021, 03:54:48 PM

Hey, I am trying to determine how safe the Bitcoin network is. Is it possible for a person/government to spread a virus targeting all Bitcoin nodes, then be able to manipulate the network?

Although this would be difficult, couldn’t a government pull this off?

The government who fears Bitcoin is because the main reason is they cannot have control over this decentalized network of blockchain.There is no single point of control or sever room which can be shut down.There are thousands of Bitcoin node running to secure the network and government can't spread virus to each of them.The records cannot be altered in blocks as for reversing the transactions or making any changes would not require much computing power that it is not advisable.The government cannot shut down the internet so is the case with Bitcoin they can put ban on its usage in their country nothing else which is also against their revenue receipts.So in total you can say no Bitcoin cannot be controlled or shut down by government.The only possible scenario is of 51% attack which will require control over 51% of the total network which is somehow not possible and very much costly.

Maestro75

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Quote from: such_anon_32 on June 13, 2021, 03:54:48 PM

couldn’t a government pull this off?

No, government can not. If it could, the various governments of the world that hates Bitcoin would have pulled it down long time ago. The worse any government can do is to ban companies, exchanges and activities of people mining Bitcoin in that country. Government can not even prevent its citizens from trading in Bitcoin, even if trading Bitcoin becomes outlawed. There are people who still trade Bitcoin in China. When Nigeria banned Bitcoin, Nigerians still traded Bitcoin through p2p. Bitcoin is untouchable.

HeRetiK

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Quote from: ranochigo on June 14, 2021, 01:42:48 AM

Suffice to say, the thread is becoming filled with more misinformation and some of them don't understand what they're talking about. OP, you'll be better off trying to search about the forum than to continue in this thread.

Yep. OP, the posts by hosseinimr93 and ranochigo are pretty much on point and should explain why hacking the entirety of the Bitcoin network in its current state is practically impossible. At least from a high level perspective without getting too much into detail. I'm afraid most of the other posts you can safely ignore.

Keep in mind that in a way you can look at the Bitcoin network as holding the worlds largest bug bounty. If there is one system worth attacking, hacking and breaking, then it's Bitcoin. That no one succeeded even more than a decade after its inception tells a lot about the network's level of security.

ranochigo

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Quote from: CryptoStar19 on June 13, 2021, 08:37:37 PM

The only possibility to hack the bitcoin network (other than a 51% attack which is theoretical and outside of actual possibility) at this point is with quantum computing... however quantum computers are a long way from being accessible and by the time they become household items, every system that involves encryption would need major security upgrades to prevent them from being hacked... by then bitcoin would have evolved along with every other network and system out there.

51% attack is possible in practice, just that there isn't any incentives in doing so, for now. Quantum computers are limited in terms of the things that they can do and it won't literally break Bitcoin.

Quote from: bittraffic on June 14, 2021, 12:29:31 AM

Because the virus has to hack every block that had been created since the inception of the Bitcoin blockchain. Over the years it has to hack years after because there are transactions created since the beginning of the hack and this will continue forever. A hacker or the virus has to change hashes from the previous and present blocks until the genesis. And in the end, it will result in just forking BTC.

This is incorrect.

Quote from: hatshepsut93 on June 14, 2021, 01:00:42 AM

And Bitcoin nodes communicate with each other strictly through Bitcoin protocol, they don't send each other random files. So, the only way to spread malware is if there's some bug in Bitcoin code that would allow remote code execution by putting payloads in block or transaction data. But it's extremely unlikely that such bug exists, and even if it does, it's not feasible to infect all node. And the biggest thing, if you start altering blockchain or otherwise breaking consensus, everyone will instantly notice.

The dependencies or the components of Bitcoin Core can still be susceptible to RCE. If you really want to hack some nodes, there are a bunch of possible attack vectors. Limited in effectiveness though, I'll probably just run a few Sybil nodes and that would be far easier.

If you were to break consensus, most people probably won't notice. Nodes would just reject the blocks or transactions.

Suffice to say, the thread is becoming filled with more misinformation and some of them don't understand what they're talking about. OP, you'll be better off trying to search about the forum than to continue in this thread.

Just to clarify, I don't mean all of them are inaccurate. There are several decent posts with valid point.

hatshepsut93

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You can't just easily target Bitcoin nodes, there's no list of all Bitcoin nodes, many nodes are unreachable so there's even no reliable way to count them. And Bitcoin nodes communicate with each other strictly through Bitcoin protocol, they don't send each other random files. So, the only way to spread malware is if there's some bug in Bitcoin code that would allow remote code execution by putting payloads in block or transaction data. But it's extremely unlikely that such bug exists, and even if it does, it's not feasible to infect all node. And the biggest thing, if you start altering blockchain or otherwise breaking consensus, everyone will instantly notice.

bittraffic

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Quote from: such_anon_32 on June 13, 2021, 04:07:58 PM

Why not? Couldn’t it be spread over years?

Because the virus has to hack every block that had been created since the inception of the Bitcoin blockchain. Over the years it has to hack years after because there are transactions created since the beginning of the hack and this will continue forever. A hacker or the virus has to change hashes from the previous and present blocks until the genesis. And in the end, it will result in just forking BTC.

apityeh71

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Actually I dont full understand how blockchain of Bitcoin was built, but in more than 10 year, I never heard Bitcoin network get attack. I think this is the advantages of decentralized technology than centralized one which more easy to get attack. Big of Bank company was get attack because they are centralized, but technogy of decentralized is very difficult and imposible to hack. Due to the decentralized and distributed system, failure in one part cannot affect the system as a whole. The system spreads widely and if you really try to attack the system, you should attack the whole system simultaneously and do so from a large number of entry points.

dansus021

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it is possible but if you can have access to internet and do spread the virus from it like the Science-fiction movie Grin

but for now if you need hack you must control all the node since bitcoin is open source all people can see the code and can see the difference what is the virus what is not, even bitcoin network upgrade need vote after all.

CryptoStar19

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The only possibility to hack the bitcoin network (other than a 51% attack which is theoretical and outside of actual possibility) at this point is with quantum computing... however quantum computers are a long way from being accessible and by the time they become household items, every system that involves encryption would need major security upgrades to prevent them from being hacked... by then bitcoin would have evolved along with every other network and system out there.

Bitcoin reached 1 trillion in value recently: surely that's enough of a monetary motivation for any entity to try to "hack" it, it would have been hacked already if it were possible.

Every day that the bitcoin network stands further increases its security and the trust therein. So the answer to OP's question is a definite no. Once in a while there will be some kind of news article that will spread FUD getting some newcomers to believe that the bitcoin network has somehow been 'hacked', followed later by further articles explaining how there was no hack, how everything happened just as expected in the blockchain.

yhiaali3

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I don't think it's possible to manipulate bitcoin by targeting all nodes with a virus or trojan, although I can't deny that at all, but it's very difficult, the fear comes not from viruses but from a 51% attack and yet no one has succeeded so far in attacking the network Bitcoin because it is very expensive in economic terms and the more the Bitcoin network grows, the more difficult it becomes.

ranochigo

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Quote from: such_anon_32 on June 13, 2021, 07:51:38 PM

Thanks for your reply, do you have any recommended reading?

Take a look at the whitepaper: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf.

It'll be sufficient for basic understanding of the network. If you need more information, there's plenty on the forum as well. Just Google it.

such_anon_32

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Quote from: ranochigo on June 13, 2021, 05:50:20 PM

Quote from: such_anon_32 on June 13, 2021, 04:33:29 PM

But can't a virus be created to corrupt nodes, and over time spread to 51% of the network.

Nodes cannot be attacked to influence the network the same way as miners do. Nodes only enforces the rules locally and does not affect the protocol rules being enforced by others. Even if the other nodes accept a Bitcoin block with a million Bitcoins in block rewards, your node won't, as you're still enforcing the rules yourself, unaffected by what others are doing. As long as your own nodes is enforcing a set of rules, no one else can make your node violate those rules.

That being said, Sybil attack doesn't require any proportion of the nodes to be compromised and that is practically the only attack which uses the nodes. You're confused about 51% attack, I'd recommend you to do up more reading on this matter before posting any further.

Thanks for your reply, do you have any recommended reading?

ranochigo

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Quote from: such_anon_32 on June 13, 2021, 04:33:29 PM

But can't a virus be created to corrupt nodes, and over time spread to 51% of the network.

Nodes cannot be attacked to influence the network the same way as miners do. Nodes only enforces the rules locally and does not affect the protocol rules being enforced by others. Even if the other nodes accept a Bitcoin block with a million Bitcoins in block rewards, your node won't, as you're still enforcing the rules yourself, unaffected by what others are doing. As long as your own nodes is enforcing a set of rules, no one else can make your node violate those rules.

That being said, Sybil attack doesn't require any proportion of the nodes to be compromised and that is practically the only attack which uses the nodes. You're confused about 51% attack, I'd recommend you to do up more reading on this matter before posting any further.

Ryker1

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Quote from: such_anon_32 on June 13, 2021, 04:16:51 PM

Why can't Bitcoin core be manipulated to accept bad blocks?

Well, not unless if there is someone who will change the bitcoin protocol but unfortunately, no one can change the bitcoin protocol so perhaps the reason why attackers can't attack the bitcoin nodes. Perhaps if this will happen, were will experience an unusual behavior of bitcoin transaction but I think there is no one can do these strategies of hacking because bitcoin has a unique algorithm that no one can change.

such_anon_32

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Quote from: hosseinimr93 on June 13, 2021, 04:17:07 PM

Quote from: such_anon_32 on June 13, 2021, 03:54:48 PM

Is it possible for a person/government to spread a virus targeting all Bitcoin nodes, then be able to manipulate the network?

Theoretically yes, practically no.

As there is no centralized server and the there are thousands of full nodes that store the entire blockchain, it's not possible to manipulate the bitcoin blockchain.
A hacker may access to the computer of someone running a full node and change the data. But it's not possible to take control of thousands of computers at a same time.

In theory, a hacker needs to have control of more than 51% of the hashing power for a long time to compromise the bitcoin blockchain. It's extremely unlikely.

Quote from: such_anon_32 on June 13, 2021, 04:16:51 PM

Why can't Bitcoin core be manipulated to accept bad blocks?

You can manipulate the data stored in your computer. But there are thousands of other full nodes that have the correct copy of the blockchain and reject invalid transactions/blocks.
A transaction needs to be validated by majority of the nodes.

But can't a virus be created to corrupt nodes, and over time spread to 51% of the network.

Quidat

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Quote from: such_anon_32 on June 13, 2021, 03:54:48 PM

Hey, I am trying to determine how safe the Bitcoin network is. Is it possible for a person/government to spread a virus targeting all Bitcoin nodes, then be able to manipulate the network?

Although this would be difficult, couldn’t a government pull this off?

If it was able to be hacked nor manipulate those codes then government had already done this long time ago and pretty sure that even at this moment
they are trying to find some loop holes with this revolutionary technology that had been created by Satoshi.We are already witnessing on how Bitcoin did really affect peoples lives when it comes to decentralization or simply not relying with 3rd parties when it comes to fund transfers and storage.
We are our own bank and that one alone is the greatest enemy on where government is trying to suppress on. So the answer into your question
is just basically "NO"!

hosseinimr93

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Quote from: such_anon_32 on June 13, 2021, 03:54:48 PM

Is it possible for a person/government to spread a virus targeting all Bitcoin nodes, then be able to manipulate the network?

Theoretically yes, practically no.

As there is no centralized server and the there are thousands of full nodes that store the entire blockchain, it's not possible to manipulate the bitcoin blockchain.
A hacker may access to the computer of someone running a full node and change the data. But it's not possible to take control of thousands of computers at a same time.

In theory, a hacker needs to have control of more than 51% of the hashing power for a long time to compromise the bitcoin blockchain. It's extremely unlikely.

Quote from: such_anon_32 on June 13, 2021, 04:16:51 PM

Why can't Bitcoin core be manipulated to accept bad blocks?

You can manipulate the data stored in your computer. But there are thousands of other full nodes that have the correct copy of the blockchain and reject invalid transactions/blocks.
A transaction needs to be validated by majority of the nodes.

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