The Ethereum community has been preparing for a significant update in its blockchain – the Constantinople hard fork.
ChainSecurity, one of the leading smart contract auditing companies, however, found significant cracks in the update. According to tests of one of the planned objectives of the update, EIP 1283, researchers found vulnerabilities in the protocol. The EIP could grant access to hackers via a loophole in the smart contract, enabling fraudulent persons to take control of user funds.
After the ChainSecurity report, Ethereum developers and the ETH community agreed on postponing the hard fork until the loophole is fixed and further tests are conducted.
When the hard fork would take place will be decided on January 18th. Ethereum will conduct a dev call, with guests such as Hudson Jameson, Afri Shoedon, Vitalik Buterin, and Nick Johnson.
The issues might take longer to resolve, according to Ethereum’s developers. The team behind Ethereum planned to release the Constantinople hard fork on January 17th, but as of now, the postpone has no particular date stamp.
In the meantime, Amberdata’s CEO Joanes Espanol said that the crack in EIP1283 is commonly described as Reentrancy attack. What the vulnerability allows is for an individual to perform identical function over and over again without user consent.
As of press time, the storage operations on Ethereum’s blockchain cost 5000 gas, while transfer functions require 2300 gas. After Constantinople, the dirty storage will cost 200 gas. This means attackers can utilize the 2300 gas to grant themselves control over the smart contract.
Constantinople upgrade has been postponed for the second time. The first delay was due to a problem in the Ropsten testnet.