Number of Bitcoin Nodes Fluctuates As Amazon Patches Linux Vulnerability

The number of Bitcoin Nodes on the network keeps fluctuating heavily for some unknown reason. However, the answer might be much simpler than people anticipate, as there is no hidden attack going on or any other malicious intent. By the look of things, a lot of Amazon’s EC2 servers have been restarted to address a recent Linux vulnerability. Security issues like these need to be addressed sooner rather than later.

Also read: Banking Services In Bitcoin Create Adverse Effect

Large Amount of Amazon-Hosted Bitcoin Nodes

It should come as no surprise to find out most of the Bitcoin nodes in existence today are not hosted at home. Even though it has become increasingly easy to set up a full Bitcoin Node on a  device as small as a Raspberry Pi 2, most people will still use a third party service provider to take care of the hosting and maintenance.

It’s not like there aren’t any plug-and-play solutions available to consumers, though, but all of these projects have one thing in common: they are relatively overpriced. Then again, the user simply has to plug in the power, and the Bitcoin node will start running automatically, removing the need to tinker with software and settings. All of this comes at a price, and some people are willing to pay for that.

Dedicated digital currency enthusiasts, on the other hand, will resort to other solutions to contribute to the Bitcoin network. Some people will run a Bitcoin Node on a spare computer that is barely capable of processing the necessary data and transactions, whereas others will use web-based services to do so. Amazon AWS provides excellent help in that regard, as they are one of the cheapest solutions to run a Bitcoin Node.

But at the same time, users are putting their faith in a centralized third party service provider again, which is not what Bitcoin is designed to stimulate. Luckily, this decision turned out to be the right one for a change, as a vast number of Bitcoin nodes disappeared off the radar for a few minutes earlier today.

This drop in numbers can be attributed to the recent Linux vulnerability that was discovered, with can put any distro at risk of being taken over by hackers for nefarious purposes. Most of the major Linux distributions released a security patch, and Amazon has taken the time to update all of their AWS servers in the meantime. As a result, Bitcoin Node users will have nothing to worry about, although a manual update and upgrade is still advised, just to err on the side of caution.

Some people on Reddit were reporting how a host of new connections showed up on their node logs, all of which seem to originate from the same IP range. These are – by the look of things – Amazon AWS servers running Bitcoin nodes trying to reconnect and synchronize with the network. No reason to panic just yet, as there is no hidden attack or takeover taking place.

Source: Reddit

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