Sequentia Co-Founder Takes Down 69% of DOGE Nodes by Exploiting Critical Flaw

Andreas Kohl, the co-founder of the Bitcoin sidechain Sequentia, has taken responsibility for exploiting a critical flaw in the Dogecoin network, which led to a significant disruption by causing 69% of the network’s nodes to go offline. This flaw, which has been named DogeReaper, was discovered by researcher Tobias Ruck and allows anyone with the knowledge of a Dogecoin node’s address to remotely crash that node.

On December 12, the Department of DOGE Efficiency, an account that monitors Dogecoin network activity, reported that a hacker had taken down nearly 69% of Dogecoin’s nodes. According to data from Blockchair, there were 647 active Dogecoin nodes before the attack. However, after the DogeReaper vulnerability was exploited, the number of active nodes dropped to just 205. While the network has since recovered slightly, with 373 nodes currently online, this attack highlighted a critical weakness in the Dogecoin infrastructure.

Andreas Kohl confirmed his involvement in the attack, revealing that he used a computer located in El Salvador to exploit the vulnerability. Kohl also credited Tobias Ruck for discovering the DogeReaper flaw. He mentioned that the vulnerability works similarly to the Death Note concept from the popular Japanese manga series, where writing the name of a person in the notebook leads to their immediate death. In this case, by inputting the address of a Dogecoin node, a hacker could trigger a Segmentation Fault and cause the targeted node to crash instantly.

The DogeReaper flaw is particularly dangerous because the addresses of Dogecoin nodes are publicly available, making it easy for anyone to exploit the flaw and bring down a large portion of the network. If a malicious actor had discovered this vulnerability instead of the responsible parties, they could have potentially halted the Dogecoin network for days, preventing transactions and block confirmations from taking place.

Despite the severity of the attack, the price of Dogecoin (DOGE) appeared to remain largely unaffected. Data from pinetbox.com indicates that DOGE saw a 3.1% increase in its price over the 24 hours following the incident. Additionally, while the attack was ongoing, the Department of DOGE Efficiency reported that Ruck and another contributor, RoqqitDev, had already sent multiple disclosures to major exchanges about the vulnerability. Upon receiving these reports, Binance promised to fix the issue by the end of the week, while Coinbase reviewed the disclosure and deemed the severity of the vulnerability to be “low.” Coinbase rewarded Ruck with a $200 payout for his efforts.

This incident underscores the importance of security and vulnerability management within cryptocurrency networks. Although the attack did not cause any significant long-term damage to the Dogecoin network, it served as a reminder of the risks associated with public blockchain systems and the need for constant vigilance in addressing potential flaws. If exploited maliciously, the DogeReaper vulnerability could have led to a prolonged disruption of the Dogecoin network, potentially damaging user confidence and impacting the token’s market performance.