Jul 2019 - TLGUt5 Tron Contract Hacked - $2k (Global)
"TPSHfJ has initiated 'transaction rollback' attacks on a DApp contract address which starts with TLGUt5, through creating the contract."
"The PeckShield security shield risk control platform DAppShield detected that at 6:38 this morning, hackers at the beginning of the TPSHfJ address continued to launch multiple transaction rollback attacks on the DApp contract address beginning with TLGUT5 by creating attack contracts. Up to now, 45,200 TRX has been profited, and the balance of the attacked contract has almost returned to zero. PeckShield security personnel analyzed that the contract draw is on the chain and in the same transaction, so it is vulnerable to rollback attacks. Prior to this, PeckShield has disclosed multiple incidents of transaction rollback attacks on TRON's DApp. PeckShield hereby reminds that DApp developers should be alert to the continued spread of such transaction rollback attacks, filter contract players, and contact security vendors in time to avoid greater losses of digital assets."
"In programming, a rollback or reversal is the operation of restoring a database to a previous state by canceling a specific transaction or set of transactions. Reversals are performed automatically by the database systems or manually by the users."
"In general, the only way that should exist in a blockchain to make a reversal of transactions in a contract that happened days ago is by means of a hard fork."
"In general, rollback transactions can be used to delete all data modifications made since the beginning of the transaction or at a safeguarding point. It also releases resources held by the transaction. It is very common to use it in “soft fork” to correct unwanted or unplanned changes occurred within the chain of blocks."
"Tron in its manual of exceptions for programmers includes the cases of affirmative style and style required in the Tron Virtual Machine (TVM) that generate a rollback, in order to preserve the atomicity of the transaction."
"This would mean that any owner of the coins could vote to revert the state to a given block number and would then have to attract enough miners to run this network."
"The attacker launched multiple roll back attacks on the DApp contract address beginning with TLGUt5. So far, it has gained 45,200 TRX, and the contract balance of the attacked contract is almost zero."
Further Analysis
A tron contract named TLGUt5 had a small amount of funds removed through a "rollback attack", which is a similar concept to a 51% attack where the attacker is able to amass enough miners to take over the chain and rollback their transactions. The amount stolen was small.
How Could This Have Been Prevented?
51% attacks can be prevented through a mix of increased block confirmation times and setting checkpoints to prevent large-scale reorganizations. This means the exchange will not credit newly deposited funds, and nodes will be prevented from accepting attacking chains.
More Cryptocurrency Exchange Hacks/Scams/Frauds
Soxex Collapse > > < < Bitmarket Gone Without Warning
Sources/Further Reading
SlowMist Hacked - SlowMist Zone (Nov 6)
https://bcsec.org/index/detail/id/580/tag/1 (Dec 17)
预警：波场一DApp合约遭黑客交易回滚攻击 (Dec 17)
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tron/historical-data/ (Dec 17)
A Day of the Hacks: 7,710 TRX Stolen of TRON's Game of Dice Attack Using a Reversal of Transactions (Dec 17)
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