Foundations of Blockchain

Implications and analysis of the attack

Since the eclipse attack is performed on the network layer, it can break the security of the consensus layer too. Any attack on the consensus layer can be more effective when the node's peer-to-peer protocol is compromised. A 51% attack without the attacker owning the majority of the computing power, or the double-spend attack even after several block confirmations, can be performed when an eclipse attack is performed.

An attacker can double-spend a transaction even after n-confirmation simply by eclipsing a fraction of the miners and the victim node. The attacker can spend a fund and forward it to the eclipsed miner. When the miner includes this in a block, the attacker shows this blockchain to the ...