Andreas Kohl, co-founder of the Bitcoin sidechain Sequentia, claimed on the social media platform X that he exploited a publicly disclosed vulnerability to incapacitate 69% of the Dogecoin network nodes. Kohl stated that he accomplished this using an old laptop in El Salvador.
According to data from Blockchair, before the vulnerability was exploited, the Dogecoin network originally had 647 active nodes, but only 315 remained before the deadline.
I used a publicly disclosed (by @TobiasRuck) vulnerability to take down 69% of the Dogecoin network from an old thinkpad in rural El Salvador. AMA. https://t.co/BNkGDWkWhu pic.twitter.com/qk16AwMaq5
— Andreas Kohl (@aejkohl) December 12, 2024
Kohl stated that he exploited a vulnerability discovered by researcher Tobias Ruck that caused these nodes to crash, and in response to questions, he noted that only nodes that had not been upgraded to the latest version were affected, which encompasses most nodes in the Dogecoin network, excluding centralized exchanges and most major custodians, "This is also why most Dogecoin users did not notice this issue, as there are not many who understand self-custody."
On December 4, an X account named 'Department Of DOGE Efficiency' publicly disclosed a vulnerability in the Dogecoin network, stating that this vulnerability could cause the entire chain to collapse. According to the account, this vulnerability named 'DogeReaper' allows anyone to remotely incapacitate any Dogecoin node.
The Department Of DOGE Efficiency claims that since Dogecoin nodes are public, anyone can exploit this vulnerability to instantly crash the entire Dogecoin network. They wrote: 'If a malicious actor discovered this vulnerability instead of us, it could at least incapacitate the Dogecoin network for several days, unable to process any transactions or generate blocks.'
Although the vulnerability has potential risks, the account indicates that Coinbase considers its severity to be low and has rewarded Ruck $200.
Public Disclosure of 'DogeReaper', a critical vulnerability in Dogecoin. DogeReaper is a critical vulnerability on Dogecoin, allowing anyone to crash any Dogecoin node remotely. See the video below for a demonstration. It works similarly to the Japanese manga series 'Death… pic.twitter.com/vsBL5kdJFc
— Department Of DOGE Efficiency (@EfficiencyDOGE) December 4, 2024
After Kohl stated that he exploited the vulnerability affecting Dogecoin network nodes, the price of Dogecoin (DOGE) did not experience much change, with the trading price of DOGE at $0.411 before the deadline, reflecting a nearly 24-hour increase of 1.7%.
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