On the Security and Privacy of Hyperledger Fabric:Challenges and Open Issues

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the security and privacy challenges of Hyperledger Fabric, identifying attack surfaces across its components and proposing counter-measures to enhance its security and privacy features.

Contribution

It systematically examines the architectural risks of Hyperledger Fabric and suggests specific security and privacy counter-measures for each component.

Findings

Identified attack vectors in consensus, chaincode, network, and privacy mechanisms.

Proposed counter-measures to mitigate security risks.

Enhanced understanding of Hyperledger Fabric's security landscape.

Abstract

In the last few years, a countless number of permissioned blockchain solutions have been proposed, with each one to claim that it revolutionizes the way of the transaction processing along with the security and privacy preserving mechanisms that it provides. Hyperledger Fabric is one of the most popular permissioned blockchain architectures that has made a significant impact on the market. However, there are only few papers of finding architectural risks regarding the security and the privacy preserving mechanisms of Hyperledger Fabric. This paper separates the attack surface of the blockchain platform into four components, namely, consensus, chaincode, network and privacy preserving mechanisms, in all of which an attacker (from inside or outside the network) can exploit the platform's design and gain access to or misuse the network. In addition, we highlight the appropriate counter-measures that can be taken in each component to address the corresponding risks and provide a significantly secure and enhanced privacy preserving Fabric network. We hope that by bringing this paper into light, we can aid developers to avoid security flaws and implementations that can be exploited by attackers but also to motivate further research to harden the platform's security and the client's privacy.