DUST-MASK: A Framework for Preventing Bitcoin’s Dust Attacks

Abstract

Bitcoin Cryptocurrency is an advanced decentralized electronic payment system which stores all the transaction records in a public ledger connected to the blockchain. Many cyber-attacks including Double-Spending, Distributed denial-of-service (DDOS), Sybil attack and Dust attack, have been targeting Blockchain-based application Cryptocurrency, mainly Bitcoin cryptocurrency. In this paper, the proposed DUST-MASK, a secure Bitcoin system against dust attack, protects Bitcoin's availability and pseudo-anonymity from attackers sending dust transactions in order to analyze the data and link the transactions to a specific user. The proposed system will inform the user of those kinds of malicious transactions and guarantee the user a choice whether to accept or reject them.