Design Patterns which Facilitate Message Digest Collision Attacks on Blockchains
This addresses security vulnerabilities in blockchain systems, but it is incremental as it builds on known issues with hash functions.
The paper analyzes how attackers can exploit collision resistance weaknesses in message digest algorithms used in blockchains like Ethereum, and proposes two mitigations: increasing digest sizes to raise attack difficulty and incorporating timeliness properties to reduce available attack time.
Message digest algorithms are one of the underlying building blocks of blockchain platforms such as Ethereum. This paper analyses situations in which the message digest collision resistance property can be exploited by attackers. Two mitigations for possible attacks are described: longer message digest sizes make attacks more difficult; and, including timeliness properties limits the amount of time an attacker has to determine a hash collision.