Cardano Hit With Massive DDoS Attack, But Network Remains Unfazed As Chang Hard Fork Nears

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The Cardano protocol suffered a DDoS attack on Tuesday as attackers attempted to steal tokens staked on the network. However, Cardano did not face any major chain downtime, and no tokens were stolen.

Cardano Successfully Mitigates DDoS Attack

Hacks and related attacks are not unusual in the crypto industry. While many Layer 1 networks, including Solana, have suffered multiple distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, Cardano has displayed a very unique characteristic.

Fluid Token CTO “ElRaulito_cnft” revealed in a June 25 post on X that the attack began block 10,487,530, with each transaction executing 194 smart contracts. The attacker spent 0.9 ADA per transaction and filled each block with several transactions in an attempt to overwhelm the network and slow down transaction throughput.

“The smart contracts used are of type REWARD. In this way, they can send large transactions while spending the least possible amount,” the Fluid Token CTO added.

However, the attack was unsuccessful and thwarted before any damage was incurred. The Cardano network continued to run as usual, without halting or suffering any congestion.

The founder and CEO of Cardano development company Anastasia, Philip Disarro, said the DDoS attack could be stopped instantly by deregistering the stake credential used by the attacker. The attack was stopped shortly after Disarro’s post.

“DDOSer halted his attack after reading my tweet in an effort to protect his funds. Alas, they were too late, and the pillaging of their funds is already in progress,” he said, adding:

“Truly iconic that the attacker who presumably wanted to damage the ecosystem actually ended up donating to the open-source smart contract development work we do at AnastasiaLabs & funding Midgard.”

Update: DDOSer halted his attack after reading my tweet in an effort to protect his funds. Alas, they were too late and the pillaging of their funds is already in progress.

Thanks for the free money moron.

Truly iconic that the attacker who presumably wanted to damage the…

— phil (@phil_uplc) June 25, 2024

According to CoinGecko data, the ADA price is just above $0.39 at the time of writing, having gained 0.44% in the past 24 hours.

Cardano Is On Track For Voltaire Upgrade This Month

Cardano is currently preparing for a significant milestone this month as the unsuccessful DDoS attack boosts investor confidence in the blockchain. As previously covered by ZyCrypto, the much-anticipated software update, Cardano Node 9.0, is set to ship this month, making it ready for the Chang hard fork to enter the Voltaire era.

Once Cardano switches from the current Basho era to Voltaire, the blockchain will no longer be actively managed by Cardano development firm IOHK, but will instead be completely run by community members.

With Cardano successfully mitigating the Tuesday attack, supporters remain confident the seven-year-old blockchain is ready for the imminent major leap to become a wholly decentralized blockchain ecosystem.