The sources of cybersecurity threats in cryptocurrency

Abstract

<p>This chapter aims to increase the understanding on the sources of cybersecurity threats in cryptocurrency. It reviews the extant literature to identify the most common sources of cybersecurity threats in cryptocurrency literature, more specifically those of 51 percent attacks, sybil attacks, eclipse attacks and spam attacks. In addition to reviewing the literature, the chapter provides illustrative examples of the attacks and methods to prevent the attacks. It presents future research avenues to improve cybersecurity in cryptocurrency. The threat of 51% attack can be fixed with new hybrids that combine proof-of-work with PoS. There can also be side-chain scaling that prevents 51% attacks, or more voting power can be given to trustworthy nodes. PoW-only coins can introduce new rules that restrict the size of large mining pools to 5 percent of the entire hash rate. The chapter highlights that too many cryptocurrency projects rely on trust and good faith in lead developers and pools.</p>