TRON’s Justin Sun Comments on Unsuccessful Network Attack

Founded in 2017, TRON is a popular decentralized blockchain platform with many of the same ambitions as Ethereum. According to a Twitter thread posted by Sun, the network was undergoing a routine upgrade on version 4.1 of the mainnet when it was attacked by an unknown malicious actor early on Monday morning.

(2/5) This attack uses the authority granted to the contract developer. The attacker initiated malicious transactions and caused the Super representative to suspend the production of blocks.

— Justin Sun🌞 (@justinsuntron) November 2, 2020

Details of the Attack

The attacker reportedly exploited the authority given to the contract developers and attempted several malicious transactions. These transactions were noticed and caused the “Super representative to suspend the production of blocks.” So-called TRON super representatives play an essential part in the network by ensuring functions like block generation and bookkeeping. According to Sun, the attack was motivated by greed, and the attackers hoped to take advantage of “the busiest blockchain network in the industry to get profit from the suspension of block production.” However, the TRON community responded quickly, singling out the issue and fixing it in short order. This was lauded by Sun, who noted that there was also some collaboration with “super representatives” to upgrade nodes after the attack. The Twitter thread also featured the all-clear signal,

“the main network gradually resumed block production, and finally, the whole network returned to normal at 9:40. The data on the chain remains intact and user assets are absolutely safe. #SAFU.”

Never a Quiet Day

Known for courting attention, Sun took the opportunity to cast the failed hack as a sign of the network’s strength, “the TRON network is the decentralized network with the most resilience and attack defense capabilities in the industry!” The attack is the latest development for a project that frequently finds itself in the news. A few days ago, the TRON Foundation announced that they would permanently honor all Tron-related cryptocurrencies stuck on trading platform OKEx. The exchange recently suspended withdrawals after discovering that its founder, Mingxing “Star” Xu, had been detained by police.