A Sybil attack targets a P2P network’s reputation system, allowing a hacker to manipulate the scores of files and entities. The attack involves creating multiple accounts to inflate an entity’s reputation. The severity of the attack depends on network settings, and account validation is the best prevention method, but it sacrifices user anonymity.
A Sybil attack is a hacker attack on a peer-to-peer (P2P) network. It takes its name from the novel Sybil, which chronicles the medical treatment of a woman with extreme dissociative identity disorder. The attack targets the P2P program’s reputation system and allows the hacker to have an unfair advantage in influencing the reputation and score of files stored on the P2P network. Several factors determine the severity of a Sybil attack, such as whether all entities can affect the reputation system equally, how easy it is to create an entity, and whether the program accepts untrusted entities and their input. Account validation is the best way for administrators to prevent these attacks, but this sacrifices user anonymity.
In a P2P network there is a component known as a reputation system. This system takes into account the ratings, opinions and scores for files, service providers and anything else that the P2P network stores. Lets other users know if the entity is worthwhile or should be ignored. By increasing the score, malicious or worthless entities will appear useful and may lead visitors to be tricked into downloading or using the entity. A hacker initiates a Sybil attack to achieve this.
The Sybil attack itself involves a hacker creating a huge number of entities or accounts. This allows the hacker to inflate an entity’s reputation by voting it hundreds or thousands, or more, of times, until other members trust the entity. In this scenario, the hacker will be able to control the influence of almost any entity on the P2P network by voting it up or down and may allow the hacker to kick other entities out of the P2P network.
How much effect a Sybil attack will have depends on your P2P network settings. If all entities, regardless of their reputation, can influence other entities equally, this allows the hacker to be more effective. When accounts are easy to create and require little information, the hacker is able to quickly amass a large number of accounts. If someone is new or is found to be an untrusted entity but their input is still considered by the reputation system, the attacker can continue to affect the system unless the accounts are removed from the system.
The most effective way to deal with a Sybil attack is for the administrator to initiate validation techniques, ensuring that people only own one entity or one account. This will cause new users to submit sensitive information or force them to reveal information about themselves that some users may find an invasion of privacy. This lack of anonymity may make some users not want to join the P2P network, but you will avoid a Sybil attack.
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