My post talks about the evolution of threats between 2023 and 2024, with things like dusting attacks and mining pool manipulations that show that hackers are still on the case. Keeping your keys and information offline is good, but it's not enough to avoid the new vulnerabilities that are coming. The community must remain vigilant and understand these vulnerabilities to better defend itself, because Bitcoin security depends on all of us.
Nothing has evolved. The threats between 2023 and 2024 are the same threats that were already around a decade or so ago. Dust attacks and the threat of a 51% attack didn't just come out in 2024. They've been around for a long time.
When I first encountered Bitcoin almost a decade ago, dust attacks were already a thing. As a matter of fact, I guess it's much more aggressive back then. Today, I'm not getting free Sats anymore. Perhaps they've done their cost-benefit analysis already and realized that it's better to keep those precious Sats rather than give them away. Stack Sats is the motto these days.
51% attack is not a serious threat in 2024. It's more serious 10 years ago. Mining pool Ghash has actually reached 51% of the processing power back in 2014. No attack was made. And the 51% control only lasted for a few hours. Today, the largest mining pool, AntPool, is only in control of 20% of the network's hashrate. An attack is far from happening, and it's getting more expensive by the day. And, as always, it hasn't been worth it.
I guess the biggest threat in 2024 is on the individual level. It's the lack of awareness, indifference or the lack of initiative to boost one's security even if it's doable.