arXiv · 2306.05541
What's inside a node? Malicious IPFS nodes under the magnifying glass
Abstract
InterPlanetary File System~(IPFS) is one of the most promising decentralized off-chain storage mechanisms, particularly relevant for blockchains, aiming to store the content forever, thus it is crucial to understand its composition, deduce actor intent and investigate its operation and impact. Beyond the network functionality that IPFS offers, assessing the quality of nodes, i.e. analysing and categorising node software and data, is essential to mitigate possible risks and exploitation of IPFS. To this end, in this work we took three daily snapshots of IPFS nodes within a month and analysed each node (by IP address) individually, using threat intelligence feeds. The above enabled us to quantify the number of potentially malicious and/or abused nodes. The outcomes lead us to consider using a filter to isolate malicious nodes from the network, an approach we implemented as a prototype and used for assessment of effectiveness.
Explore related subjects
Keep this discovery
Christos Karapapas, George C. Polyzos, Constantinos Patsakis. 2023-06-08. What's inside a node? Malicious IPFS nodes under the magnifying glass. https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.05541
Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.