Sybil Attack
Security● Common
An attack where an adversary creates many fake identities or nodes to gain disproportionate influence in a network. In Bitcoin, used to facilitate eclipse attacks or manipulate peer discovery. Proof-of-work and identity-free design limit Sybil impact.
Technical Notes
Bitcoin mitigations: peer selection by IP diversity, limited connections per subnet, outbound connection preference, block-relay-only connections. No identity means Sybil resistance comes from: resource costs, network topology rules, honest majority assumption.
Metadata
Visibility: Public
Created:1/3/2026by System