Late Tuesday, the Cardano network faced a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack aimed at disrupting its operations through a surge in malicious activities. The blockchain’s robust mechanisms successfully mitigated the attack, ensuring continued stability and operation.
Details of the Attack
The attack began on block 10,487,530, with each transaction executing 194 smart contracts of the REWARD type, spending 0.9 ADA per transaction. The strategy aimed to overload the network by filling each block with complex transactions, creating a backlog and degrading performance.
Response and Neutralization
Philip Disarro, founder of Cardano development firm Anastasia, played a key role in neutralizing the threat. His prompt public response on X influenced the attacker to cease their activities. Disarro noted that the attacker’s funds were already being pillaged, ironically ending up funding the open-source smart contract development work at Anastasia Labs and Midgard.
Community Reaction
The Cardano community closely monitored the situation. Prominent content creator Big Pey reassured the community via X, emphasizing that the network remained resilient and did not crash. This sentiment was widely echoed, highlighting confidence in the network’s stability and security measures.
Technical Insight
Jason Matias, founder of The Art of Selling Art, visually described the impact of the DDoS attack. He explained how spam transactions created larger, more difficult-to-process blocks. Cardano’s use of the extended Unspent Transaction Output (eUTxO) model was crucial in mitigating the attack's impact. This model allows for independent processing of each transaction, preventing malicious activity from compromising the network's integrity.
The architectural choice of the eUTxO model ensures better scalability and security, allowing the Cardano network to maintain high throughput and reliability even under duress.$ADA