Unsuccessful attack on Ethereum managed to trick a few nodes

A failed attack on the Ethereum blockchain that occurred Tuesday managed to trick a few nodes but was unable to hoodwink the rest of the network.

According to Ethereum developer Marius Van Der Wijden, the attacker published a chain of roughly 550 blocks, which had invalid proofs of work. This means that, instead of mining the blocks correctly according to the network’s rules, the blocks were created at will and broadcast to the network.

The majority of Ethereum nodes rejected the blocks, seeing that the proofs of work were invalid. But a small percentage of nodes running Nethermind — an Ethereum client — switched to the fake version of the blockchain.

The main blockchain has now overtaken the length of the alternative blockchain version with the fake blocks. As a result, all affected nodes have now moved back onto the main blockchain.

“Another great demonstration of how client diversity makes ethereum stronger,” said Van Der Wijden, adding that there's “no immediate attention required from node operators.”

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