A major security breach hit the Dogecoin network crashed on December 12, resulting in the crash of nearly 70% of its active nodes after a hacker exploited a critical vulnerability dubbed "DogeReaper."
Andreas Kohl, co-founder of Bitcoin sidechain Sequentia, claimed responsibility for the attack, which he executed using an old ThinkPad laptop from rural El Salvador. The network's active nodes plummeted from 647 to just 205 during the incident, according to blockchain explorer Blockchair.
The vulnerability was previously disclosed on December 4 by the "Department Of DOGE Efficiency" X account, which warned that "DogeReaper" could allow remote crashes of any Dogecoin node. Despite the early warning, the flaw remained unpatched through the attack date.
"DogeReaper works like the Death Note manga series - you write down a node's address, and it instantly crashes with a Segmentation Fault," explained the disclosure post. The account noted that a malicious actor could have potentially halted the entire network for days.
Major cryptocurrency exchanges moved to reassure users, with Coinbase rating the vulnerability's severity as "low." The attack appeared to have minimal impact on DOGE's price, which remained stable around $0.04, showing only a slight 1% decrease.
As of the latest reports, the network has begun recovering, with node counts rising to 376 functional nodes. The incident has sparked discussions about security measures in popular blockchain networks and the importance of timely vulnerability patches.