EOS RAM “robbery” – Core team develops a “quick-fix”

On 27th August, EOS, a blockchain protocol put up a post on Reddit warning users of a bug that is exploiting the users’ RAM. The EOS core team has assured the cryptocurrency community that they have been working continuously to get the bug fixed. The team has further stated that although they have not found a permanent solution to the issue, a temporary fix could mitigate the RAM exploit.

According to the Reddit post, a malicious user would have to run a specific bug on their account, in order to consume RAM from other users within the EOS ecosystem. The malicious users were able to steal the RAM of the user sending the tokens by “inserting large amounts of garbage values into rows when dApps/users send those tokens.”

The post then went on to explain how users could tackle the issue temporarily. It said:

“By sending tokens to a proxy account with no available RAM, and with a memo where the first word of the memo is the account you eventually want to send the tokens to, the only account they can assume database row permissions for is the proxy, which has no RAM.”

According to the temporary solution provided by the team, users would have to send their tokens through a proxy account which contains a memo written at the sender’s end. If user A wants to send EOS to ambcrypto, the sender’s memo would read “ambcrypto: xyz”. The account holder with malicious intent is then forced to network with only the proxy account, effectively keeping the RAM of the user safe.

EOS is a blockchain platform that focuses on being a decentralized operating system by permitting decentralized applications [dApps] and smart contracts to run on its network. As any dApp running on the EOS ecosystem needs RAM to store data, it has become a valuable resource to users.

The EOS blockchain had until now limited its RAM to 64GB but recent approval from EOS authorities has led to the decision of increasing the quantity of RAM but in a gradual manner.  The scarcity of RAM has led users to trade it as a commodity with the fluctuation of prices being based on demand and supply.

Redditor, Cdndeveloper commented:

“Awesome work! Good job on the quick solution.”

Another Redditor, Mus_ulas added:

“After this, I expect and %30 increase in EOS.”

Luca_Skywalker_ another Redditor said:

“At least, EOS is the most entertaining project during the bearmarket.”