Blockchain security based on cryptography: a review
Wenwen Zhou, Dongyang Lyu, Xiaoqi Li
TL;DR
The paper analyzes blockchain security through a cryptography-centered lens, mapping attacks to a six-layer architecture and detailing how cryptographic primitives underpin resilience. It surveys widely used primitives (hashing, digital signatures, encryption, zero-knowledge proofs, PKI) and quantum threats, then presents defense designs tailored to key attacks: 51% attacks, double spending, reentrancy, replay, Sybil, and timestamp tampering. Each defense is instantiated with concrete schemes (e.g., historical weighted difficulty, payment-state controls, dynamic mutexes, nonce-based replay protection, reputation systems, hybrid randomness) and evaluated against standard benchmarks. The work offers a practical roadmap for building secure, post-quantum-aware, multi-layer blockchain systems and highlights directions for further cryptographic and architectural innovations.
Abstract
As an emerging service framework built by combining cryptography, P2P network, consensus mechanism and innovative contract technology, blockchain has been widely used in digital finance, data sharing, message traceability and electronic evidence preservation because of its decentralised, non-tamperable and transaction traceability. However, with the complex and changeable application scenarios of blockchain technology and the continuous enhancement of blockchain attack technology, the security of the blockchain system has been seriously threatened, dramatically affecting the development and application of blockchain technology. This paper aims to analyse the attacks on blockchain from the perspective of cryptography. Firstly, from the cryptography technology in the blockchain, the principle of hash functions, digital signatures, and other technologies, as well as their role in the blockchain, are introduced. Then, based on the six-layer architecture of the blockchain, the attacks on the data layer, the network layer, the consensus layer, the contract layer, the incentive layer and the application layer are analysed, and the methods to mitigate or resist the attacks are proposed. Secondly, the attack principles of 51% attack, Double-Spending attack, Reentrancy attack, Replay attack, Sybil attack and Timestamp Tampering attack were analysed, and the mitigation or defence solutions for these six attacks were designed. Finally, the core problems to be solved in blockchain technology are summarised, and the future development of blockchain security technology is projected.