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What’s Inside a Node? Malicious IPFS Nodes Under the Magnifying Glass

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ICT Systems Security and Privacy Protection (SEC 2023)

Part of the book series: IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology ((IFIPAICT,volume 679))

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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.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://decrypt.co/resources/how-to-use-ipfs-the-backbone-of-web3.

  2. 2.

    https://www.trustwave.com/en-us/resources/blogs/spiderlabs-blog/ipfs-the-new-hotbed-of-phishing.

  3. 3.

    https://edri.org/our-work/no-justification-for-internet-censorship-during-catalan-referendum/.

  4. 4.

    https://github.com/ipfs/kubo/blob/master/docs/changelogs/v0.14.md.

  5. 5.

    https://github.com/libp2p/hydra-booster/.

  6. 6.

    https://www.spamhaus.com/resource-center/getting-the-low-down-from-xyz-registry-on-combating-domain-abuse/https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/these-are-the-top-level-domains-threat-actors-like-the-most/.

  7. 7.

    https://blog.talosintelligence.com/ipfs-abuse/.

  8. 8.

    https://docs.python.org/3/library/mimetypes.html.

  9. 9.

    https://pypi.org/project/nsfw-detector/.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dennis Trautwein for his insightful comments. This work was supported in part by the European Commission under the Horizon Europe Programme, as part of the project LAZARUS (https://lazarus-he.eu/, Grant Agreement no. 101070303) and the Horizon 2020 Programme, as part of the project HEROES (https://heroes-fct.eu/, Grant Agreement no. 101021801) and was also supported in part by the Research Center of the Athens University of Economics and Business.

The content of this article does not reflect the official opinion of the European Union. Responsibility for the information and views expressed therein lies entirely with the authors.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Athens University of Economics and Business, Athens, Greece

    Christos Karapapas & George C. Polyzos

  2. University of Piraeus, Piraeus, Greece

    Constantinos Patsakis

  3. Athena Research Center, Marousi, Greece

    Constantinos Patsakis

Authors
  1. Christos Karapapas
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  2. George C. Polyzos
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  3. Constantinos Patsakis
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christos Karapapas .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center, Poznań, Poland

    Norbert Meyer

  2. Poznań University of Technology, Poznań, Poland

    Anna Grocholewska-Czuryło

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Karapapas, C., Polyzos, G.C., Patsakis, C. (2024). What’s Inside a Node? Malicious IPFS Nodes Under the Magnifying Glass. In: Meyer, N., Grocholewska-Czuryło, A. (eds) ICT Systems Security and Privacy Protection. SEC 2023. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 679. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-56326-3_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-56326-3_11

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-56325-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-56326-3

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