Configurations affected: GETH 1.4.8
Probability: High
Severity: High
Details::
An attack vector has been identified in the freshly released implementation of the Soft Dao fork. The code of promulgation of the fork in Geth (and other customers) allows the execution of the EVM code to the block gas limit without paying for the gas. This can slow down mining and prevent the inclusion of legitimate transactions.
The flexible fork will not be activated if the gas limit of the 1800,000 block is greater than 40,000,000 gas (that is to say if the community votes to activate the fork fails). The attack cannot be carried out in this case.
Effects on the depth of reorganization of the expected chain: None
Temporary bypass solution offered::
- Run Geth 1.4.7
- Run Geth 1.4.8 without THE –Dao-Soft-Ffrork Command line option.
Follow -up::
The available options are taken into account. The community can avoid the negative consequences of the gentle fork by voting against it until better solution has been found. Note that, to our knowledge, no funds can be recovered from DAOs assigned until July 14, 2016. There is no immediate emergency to block transactions while other proposals are being developed.
