Feather Fork Attack And It's Effect On The Blockchain Network

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The block chain although being well praised for all its advanced security measures and decentralized nature, has also led to the development of advanced and more sophisticated attack strategies like the feather fork attack, the feather fork is basically a block chain attack where by an attacker creates a forked chain by mining blocks faster than the main chain is mining.

The Feather Fork Attack is launched by the attacker only when specific or certain events takes place in the block chain, this attack has the potential to disrupt the normal operations of a block chain network by influencing the block chains consensus hence leading to the reversal of transactions.

In this post of mine, I will be considering and explaining some of the key and significant effects of a successfully launched Feather Fork Attack on the block chain network, underlying some of its implications and the challenges which it poses to the block chain network.

• Causes Network Instability

One effect of the Feather Fork Attack is that it causes and contributes to network instability, how? You may ask well this is owing to the fact that the attack involves a miner starting a fork and then releasing it at a strategic or specific moments and thus creating confusion in the network.

This feather fork attack can also cause and lead to the creation and competition of multiple forks and an increased number of orphaned blocks owing to the fact that the blocks that were valid at one point in time will tend to be might discarded in favor of anothernew chain.

This instability in the block chain network will definitely reduce the overall efficiency of the network and that is not all, it will also increases the uncertainty and doubt of users and developers who rely and depend on the stability of the block chain for their transactions.

• Increases Transaction Cost

Another effect and impact of the feather fork attacks is that it can indirectly lead to and facilitate the increament of transaction costs, the main reason for this is that during a feather attack, the compromised or being attacked network may become congested and as a result creating the need for transactions to be re broadcast and confirmed by miners.

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When this network congestion and transaction delays continues increasing transaction cost will be the only way some users will think to incentivize miners to prioritize their own transactions and as a result every other users may be forced to pay higher fees to ensure their transactions are included in the block chain.

Additionally this increase in transaction costs can be discouraging for particularly users who adopted the block chain based network because of the promise of low transaction processing costs and affordability of the block chain based network.

• It Leads To Censoring Of Transactions

Another effect and impact, infact one of the primary effects of a successfully propagated feather fork attack is that it leads to transaction censorship, which basically happens when the attacker probably the network's token miner attempts to gain control over a portion of the network’s hashing power.

Transaction censoring is basically transaction discrimination whereby transaction performed by certain addresses can be delayed or entirely not included in the block chain, this occurs when a miner strategically chooses to withhold and selectively release certain blocks.

This discrimination and censorship of transaction processing and verification basically undermines the fundamental and core principle of block chain as being decentralized and neutral and as a result disrupting the every day activities and transactions of innocent individuals or entities.

• Diminishes Users Confidence And Trust

It is so unfortunate that as important and significant as gaining the trust of users of the block chain technology and its based network, one of the impact and effects of the cornerstone of blockchain technology, attracting users and investors by offering a reliable and immutable ledger.

Additionally, this feather fork attack can diminish if not completely erode the trust of users in the network, it does this by showing everyone with ample evidence that the network can be manipulated and when users observe and bear witness to this, their confidence and trust in the integrity and reliability of the network diminishes.

This reduced and diminished trust inturn can lead to and trigger a corresponding reduction or decline in the adoption and investment of the network by new and existing users and as a result significantly reducing growth in the block chain network.

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In conclusion, with all that have been said it would not be a lie or exaggerating to say that the feather fork attack represents a significant threat to the stability and security of blockchain networks.

The reason for saying this has been made clear in the above paragraphs in this post with detailed explanation of how the feather fork attack facilitates and enables the censorship or censoring of transactions, contribute to network instability, diminish confidence and trust of users and increasing transaction costs.