Blockchain Communication Vulnerabilities

2026-03-03

AI Summary

This study addresses the lack of systematic comparative analysis of vulnerabilities in mainstream blockchain communication protocols under adversarial conditions. For the first time, it presents an empirical cross-chain vulnerability assessment of Algorand, Aptos, Avalanche, Redbelly, and Solana within a unified attack model, integrating network-layer attacks—such as packet loss, targeted load injection, and leader isolation—with comprehensive performance evaluation. The findings reveal protocol-specific weaknesses: Algorand exhibits high sensitivity to packet loss; Aptos is susceptible to targeted load and leader isolation attacks; Avalanche shows fragility under transient faults; Redbelly’s performance degrades significantly under packet loss; and Solana is vulnerable to stop-and-leader-isolation attacks. The accompanying open-source framework provides empirical foundations for future protocol design and security hardening.

Technology Category

• Computer Vision: Adversarial Attacks & Robustness
• Application Domains: Security
• Search and Optimization: Algorithm Configuration

Application Category

• Security and Privacy: Blockchains and distributed ledgers
• Responsible Web: Algorithmic accountability and transparency on the web
• Graph Algorithms and Modeling for the Web: Efficient manipulation of static and dynamic Web-related graphs

Abstract

Blockchains are diverse in the way they handle communications between their nodes to disseminate information, mitigate attacks, and agree on the next block. While security vulnerabilities have been identified, they rely on an attack custom-made for a specific blockchain communication protocol. To our knowledge, the vulnerabilities of multiple blockchain communication protocols to adversarial conditions have never been compared. In this paper, we compare empirically the vulnerabilities of the communication protocols of five modern in-production blockchains, Algorand, Aptos, Avalanche, Redbelly and Solana, when attacked in five different ways. We conclude that Algorand is vulnerable to packet loss attacks, Aptos is vulnerable to targeted load attacks and leader isolation attacks, Avalanche is vulnerable to transient failure attacks, Redbelly's performance is impacted by packet loss attacks and Solana is vulnerable to stopping attacks and leader isolation attacks. Our system is open source.

Problem

• blockchain communication
• vulnerability comparison
• adversarial attacks
• network protocols
• consensus security

Innovation

• blockchain communication protocols
• empirical vulnerability comparison
• adversarial attacks
• consensus robustness
• open-source evaluation framework