Ethereum Client Requests Users to Update Nodes Due to Potential Attack

According to a recent warning by Parity, the fastest Ethereum client, it seems that Parity Ethereum nodes may be under attack, and users need to implement new updates.

As the last day of 2019 took off, a new announcement was published on the website of Ethereum client, Parity. The announcement says that the company, Parity Technologies, received and investigated reports of some Parity Ethereum nodes that were not syncing properly.

Parity’s team concluded that there may be an attack underway, which is why they quickly published two new updates named v2.6.8-beta and v2.5.13-stable. The updates should implement changes that could protect the nodes from the attack — if there truly is one — and Parity urges users to implement them as soon as possible.

Further, the team urged everyone to implement these patches, whether or not they experienced any issues up to this point. Both new releases can be found on Github.

What is Parity?

As many might already know, Parity is an Ethereum client that allows for speedy synchronization to the Ethereum’s blockchain and network. Further, it maximizes uptime for those who use the network, including various service providers, crypto miners, and even digital currency exchanges.

As such, it provides a core infrastructure that is crucial for reliable, fast services.

What is the problem?

According to what is known, about 20 hours ago one Ethereum user called Peter Pratscher, reported experiencing issues while using Parity client v2.5.12. The Parity team investigated the report and noticed problems on block $11355. The team identified that their client had stopped syncing and that it displayed errors, which, naturally, should not have happened.

Furthermore, the client would not return to work without resyncing, which is a serious issue for all of its users. As mentioned, Parity quickly published two updates that can supposedly fix the problem, and the team urged everyone to update the patches as soon as possible.

The same warning was issued by ETC Cooperative, which helped spread the word to Parity users via Twitter.

Another issue emerges on Ethereum

As many in the crypto community are aware by now, Ethereum was recently supposed to receive a major update via Ice Age. Unfortunately, the update had some unforeseen issues, which threatened to slow the entire network, which is why a hard fork known as Muir Glacier was proposed.

Supposedly, the hard fork would solve the Ice Age problems, and the network would continue operating properly. However, the hard fork will not take place before block 9,200,000, which is expected to arrive on January 2nd, 2020.

Meanwhile, Ethereum clients — Parity included — needed an upgrade that would prepare them for the hard fork, which Parity already performed. But, in doing so, it had to rebuild the chain history, as explained on Github by Brian Venturo. With 4 nodes now dead, the client was allocating so little hash rate to ETH that no one noticed the issue until the logs were already rotated out.

Did you experience issues on Parity? Let us know what you think about the issue in the comments below.

Image via Shutterstock, Twitter @etherchain_org @ParityTech @ETCCooperative