Specialists in cryptocurrency have announced that before the latest update of the software that manages bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency today, the latter was threatened by a major bug, able to undermine and destroy its blockchain.
A flaw in the software on which the bitcoin blockchain is based has recently been discovered, according to the Bitcoin Core website. Due to the fact that cryptocurrencies are currencies that rely entirely on the computer system, this bug could take offline the entire bitcoin network.
Cryptocurrency experts have explained that if this flaw had been exploited by hackers, a cyberattack of the kind could have cost very much to the owners of bitcoin. In particular, she could totally destroy the bitchain blockchain. To do this, hackers would have spent only 80,000 dollars (about 67,000 euros).
According to specialists, this bug in the software would have allowed criminals to create a new valid block, but who tries to pass the same transaction twice. The bitcoin blockchain protects against transactions that do not conform to the rules of the system and therefore this block could have been destroyed instead of being denied. So, when this block is passed in chain to all users of the Bitcoin Core software (used by nearly 95% of bitcoin owners), it creates a malfunction of the system and breaks down the whole. This bug is a denial of service vulnerability.
A developer of Bitcoin Core announced that following the last update implemented, this bug has been fixed and owners of Bitcoins can sleep on their two ears. On the other hand, this defect in the software has been present for one year, reports the information site Motherboard. The developers thanked in an official statement the anonymous third party who noticed it and informed them of this dangerous bug.
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