Chainlink node operators temporarily suffered a spam attack

Decentralized network, Chainlink was under attack by a spammer who targeted select few node operators on Sunday, with the intention of disrupting the network through unnecessary on-chain computation. Chainlink nodes are oracles that allow smart contracts that reside on the Ethereum to interact with external software.

Chainlink community member further said in the thread that the spam attempt was unsuccessful at large and all $LINK nodes were live meaning the Chainlink oracle networks continued to update with fresh data. He tweeted:

1/ This past Saturday night after SmartCon, someone attempted to spam a select few Chainlink nodes, aiming to disrupt the network through unnecessary on-chain computations

This spam attempt was unsuccessful and all Chainlink oracle networks continued to update with fresh data

— ChainLinkGod.eth (@ChainLinkGod) September 4, 2020

The community member further detailed that the ‘spam wave’ was short-lived and while the nodes stayed live, they were topped up with $ETH as needed, because of Chainlink’s active monitoring systems. Moreover, this also means that during the spam attack, the node operators lost ETH from their hot wallets. Another report was able to learn that approximately 700 ETH was drained from nine node operators during the attack.

The Tweet also said:

Chain Link network ensured node operators spent resources to stay live as the incentive to maintain reliable oracle services in the long run, which is greater than going offline and taking a reputation hit.

The affected Chainlink node operators include T-Systems, 01Node, Anyblock Analytics, B-Harvest, ChainLayer, Chainlink, Everstake, Figment Networks and LinkPool, As of press time, Chainlink has not released an official statement yet about the attack and neither has any of the node operators.