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Attack on the Verge Blockchain - all Verge pools taken offline until attack is resolved
Hot on the heels of yesterday's 51% attack on the Electroneum blockchain, there was a another attack of the same category on the Verge Blockchain causing both our daemon nodes to crash and requiring a full resync to recover.
The exploited a bug in retargeting in the XVG code. Usually to successfully mine XVG blocks, every "next" block must be of a different algorithm so for example scrypt, then x17, then Lyra etc. Due to several bugs in the XVG code, you can exploit this feature by mining blocks with a spoofed timestamp. When you submit a mined block (as a malicious miner or pool) you simply set a false timestamp to this block one hour ago and XVG will then "think" the last block mined on that algo was one hour ago. Your next block, the subsequent block will then have the correct time. And since it's already an hour ago (at least that is what the network thinks) it will allow this block to be added to the main chain as well.
Full details here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3256693.0
Update 4: I'm currently recompiling our Verge daemons and will let them sync up from the ground over the coming night. I will re-open both verge pools for a trial run tomorrow. If nothing bad happens they will stay open.
Update 3: The attack is still going on unmitigated and won't be mitigated until today's bandaid fix kicks in at block 2040000. You can verify this yourself by paying attention to the block timestamps on the Verge explorer. Sometimes the same block number is mined multiple times per second. Overall block times are are approx. 1 second. https://verge-blockchain.info/
Update 2: The devs issued another bandaid fix for the exploit that just slightly mitigates the underlying problem. Until they come up with a proper solution, pools will remain offline. I'm with ocminer (@SuprnovaPools) on this, I cannot justify to have our miners shoulder the risk of getting scammed of their earnings by some clowns gaming the blockchain and risking the reputation of the pool.
Update: On 05. April the attacker started again and mined about another 12000 blocks:
I skimmed the logs and saw the attacker started the new attack at around block 2014060 and stopped just now at block 2026196. The second attack is ongoing. The attacker is getting one newly mined block per second and orphans other legit blocks - https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/89t4yc/xvg_still_being_exploited_after_fix_by_dev_check/
Customer support service by UserEcho
I'm currently re-building the Verge daemons from source with the proposed fix applied. Once this completes the pool unfortunately require another restart.
Both Verge Pools are up again, running on daemons containing the attack fix.
On 05. April the attacker started again and mined about another 12000 blocks:
I skimmed the logs and saw the attacker started the new attack at around block 2014060 and stopped just now at block 2026196
The attacker is getting one newly mined block per second and orphans other legit blocks
Source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3256693.0 (post updated)
does this mean that all tokens that show paid (about 7000 earned at this point) and it appears that they are sent to be paid but not showing anyplace including blockchain ? does this mean the coins will still be delivered ? or they were delivered to a bad address and stolen ? trying to point to a new address didn't help .. but still not sure the exact damage caused -- thx for any explanation of the payments made that are noplace to find ?
should I stop the mining on verge for now ? thx 4 advice my friend much respect -- ill get u back for all your help ! namaste
DCqyH7wSo3UbGRkaAMWKYfJYxMEpe1KPd8
and
DMretdCG4TUJc5Cx61aGDuKM4zK8L7sRrC
The point, are our xvg coin that we mine safe or not? Are mining xvg safe or not? I'm still waiting for 2 payment to enter my wallet. Maybe the amount not as big as DJ's, just small fries here.
Please check my wallet to
DRMro5jVkJRx159hGJbGWfzNHu9y2V7cUe
Thx u oliver.
CryptoCat: I'm currently in talks with ocminer (pool-admin of suprnova.cc) about the recommended course of action. The situation if currently definitely NOT under control and judging from the bitcointalk-thread linked in my initial post, a Verge Hardfork will be required to fix this, and it's apparently coming.
So Oliver, do you suggest we keep mining or stop for now?
And last one. Usually after the pool issue payment to my wallet, it take no more than 1 hour. But my 2 last transaction consecutively 4hour and 2hour hadn't receive. Is this common things?
Transaction id
152a58a322d7f5a85cd6ef888b98f5c8d91ea0fe4ffbc09a05b7e3c1df792b55
4e0faf9f2b2a5c2b15a06a8df22b1459f2ae221d4a9451cd3d975cbfbe8c0989
When I check on verge blockchain explorer, it said error and there are no payment made.
Blake or Scrypt?
Blake
After consultation with other pool-admins I have decided to take down both Verge Pools until the Verge Developer Team fixes the problem that makes the current exploit by the attacker possible. I will announce here once it is safe to resuming mining. To be absolutely clear, this affects ALL POOLS, not just us.
I was wondering what happened to all the coins that I mined when difficulty was low. They show as paid out from this site, but my wallet, when it was syncing, never showed anything coming in. Of course the wallet is not syncing now, but...
Do I lose these? Is it just a mystery until the fork is completed? Are all the good answers regarding Verge unknown at this point?
thanks for the service Oliver
nevermind, found your msg:
"The rest of the blocks became garbage due to the attack of that asshole."
sigh.
thx again
where my 10 coins were gone? D8jn9yv2jRu4ieG9o3186dwj4y5ewtWPb1
10, ha!
I mined about 4000 last night, lol
When or will the pool reopen?
Thanks,
When the Verge team comes up with a proper solution. The attack is still going on with the people responsible mining a block every second. Raking in 3600 * 1650 = 5940000 XVG per hour.
Right now it is completely pointless to mine Verge anywhere as the attack is still going on at full speed. You can check this yourself on the Verge block explorer: https://verge-blockchain.info/. Mind the timestamps on overy second row being just a second apart. Resulting in 3600 * 1650 = 5940000 XVG per hour for the attacker(s).
I'm currently recompiling our Verge daemons and will let them sync up from the ground over the coming night. I will re-open both verge pools for a trial run tomorrow. If nothing bad happens they will stay open.
ok, so i can add a few miners from tonight? only on blake2s for the moment, to see iff all goes well? or you want me to go at least 50% of my total miners?
The Verge daemon(s) are still syncing with the blockchain as I let them sync from scratch to start with a clean slate. As soon as they are done, I'll notify you guys here and on twitter.
Both Verge pools have been re-opened. We'll see how it goes.
Scrypt pool for verge doesnt seem to be working right
Have miners on and didn't earn any verge today
Did a new attack started a few hours ago???
Sorry was out partying last night and slept until now. Investigating ...
There's definitely something weird going on with the blockchain ...
connection timeout
SetBestChain: new best=000000a3716c0e95593a height=2182514 trust=2182515 date=05/22/18 02:45:22
trying connection 88.163.168.251:21102 lastseen=506.0hrs
SetBestChain: new best=000000bbfbd52c86adcb height=2182515 trust=2182516 date=05/22/18 04:03:25
SetBestChain: new best=000000551d99e74f88db height=2182516 trust=2182517 date=05/22/18 02:45:23
SetBestChain: new best=0000007af0b00d7b5dfd height=2182517 trust=2182518 date=05/22/18 02:45:23
SetBestChain: new best=54ca95420a794ad8652e height=2182518 trust=2182519 date=05/22/18 04:03:26
SetBestChain: new best=e2c886d097daaee1b14b height=2182519 trust=2182520 date=05/22/18 02:45:24
connect() failed after select(): No route to host
SetBestChain: new best=da7db2eeb838f5938ed4 height=2182520 trust=2182521 date=05/22/18 02:45:24
trying connection 104.159.176.22:21102 lastseen=21.6hrs
SetBestChain: new best=1f855d9107092c0d03a4 height=2182521 trust=2182522 date=05/22/18 04:03:26
SetBestChain: new best=6749294344cffa007408 height=2182522 trust=2182523 date=05/22/18 02:45:25
SetBestChain: new best=eef1a1e6b34b89181112 height=2182523 trust=2182524 date=05/22/18 02:45:25
SetBestChain: new best=000000ccb2de3a3f07fc height=2182524 trust=2182525 date=05/22/18 04:03:26
SetBestChain: new best=0000001b570b563adee8 height=2182525 trust=2182526 date=05/22/18 02:45:26
SetBestChain: new best=000000e4bce33528d592 height=2182526 trust=2182527 date=05/22/18 02:45:26
SetBestChain: new best=000000c822bfca9b8017 height=2182527 trust=2182528 date=05/22/18 04:03:26
ThreadRPCServer method=getinfo
SetBestChain: new best=0000000864636e7cca79 height=2182528 trust=2182529 date=05/22/18 02:45:27
SetBestChain: new best=00000044ed7763540773 height=2182529 trust=2182530 date=05/22/18 02:45:27```
Its like as if the daemon is constantly switching between the best chain tip.
https://www.reddit.com/r/vergecurrency/comments/8l6avy/orphans/
https://twitter.com/vergecurrency/status/998764810698358786?s=21
We are not under DDos but are still suffering from the chain problem.
xvg1 and xvg2 are up again but I expect the attack to resume at some point since the developers haven't fixed anything.
More info on the attack here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3256693.msg38135174#msg38135174