TLS MITM attack on the Ripple XRP Ledger

Bachelor thesis (2020)

Authors

W.L. Bubberman Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

Contributors

S. Roos Data-Intensive Systems - EEMCS (mentor)
S. Prabhu Kumble Data-Intensive Systems - EEMCS (graduation committee member)
Ranga Rao Venkatesha Prasad Embedded Systems - EEMCS (graduation committee member)
Faculty
Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science
Copyright: © 2020 Wolf Bubberman
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Published Date

22-06-2020

Language

English

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Faculty

Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

Abstract

The Ripple XRP Ledger network hosts a cryptocurrency called XRP which uses the TLS protocol to send messages between nodes. It is crucial that the network is tested against attacks to ensure its security. The Ripple XRP Ledger could be vulnerable to a Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attack. This MITM attack is an attack which can intercept and modify data by posing as intended receiver of the message. Potentially, this could have major implications as message content could be intercepted and used maliciously. Therefore this paper aims to answer the question: ``Is it possible to conduct a TLS MITM attack on the XRP ledger to gain access to message content and how does such an attack affect the performance of the system?". The research done in this paper concluded that it is possible to conduct a TLS MITM attack on the XRP Ledger. The impact on performance is a delay in the travel time of a message. However, how big this delay is, is dependent on the network the attack is executed on. In the tested environment it was roughly adding a 69.2\% delay to a message. Future research is necessary to be able to modify the message content and to confirm if the larger the delay added by the MITM, the higher the probability that the MITM is detected.