A Survey on the Security of Blockchain Systems

TL;DR

This paper provides a comprehensive survey of blockchain security, analyzing threats, real attacks, and defense solutions to guide future research in securing blockchain systems.

Contribution

It offers a systematic review of blockchain security threats, attacks, and countermeasures, filling a gap in the existing literature.

Findings

Identified key security threats to blockchain systems

Reviewed real-world attack cases on popular blockchains

Summarized security enhancement strategies

Abstract

Since its inception, the blockchain technology has shown promising application prospects. From the initial cryptocurrency to the current smart contract, blockchain has been applied to many fields. Although there are some studies on the security and privacy issues of blockchain, there lacks a systematic examination on the security of blockchain systems. In this paper, we conduct a systematic study on the security threats to blockchain and survey the corresponding real attacks by examining popular blockchain systems. We also review the security enhancement solutions for blockchain, which could be used in the development of various blockchain systems, and suggest some future directions to stir research efforts into this area.