Andreas Kohl Crashes 69% of the Dogecoin Network by Exploiting Critical Vulnerability Dubbed “DogeReaper”

Andreas Kohl, co-founder of the Bitcoin sidechain Sequentia, claimed responsibility for crashing 69% of the Dogecoin network by exploiting a critical vulnerability dubbed “DogeReaper.”

Andreas Kohl, co-founder of Bitcoin sidechain Sequentia, has claimed responsibility for crashing nearly 69% of the Dogecoin network by exploiting a critical vulnerability dubbed “DogeReaper.”

On Dec. 12, the Department of DOGE Efficiency, or the @EfficiencyDOGE X account, reported that a hacker took down a large portion of the meme coin network’s nodes.

According to data from Blockchair, Dogecoin had 647 active nodes before the hack. However, by the time @EfficiencyDOGE discovered and reported the vulnerability, only 205 nodes remained active. At the time of writing, the network recovered slightly to 373 active nodes.

Kohl, who is also known for founding Bitcoin sidechain project Sequentia, claimed he was responsible for crashing the Dogecoin network. He said he took down the network using a computer located in El Salvador.

“Let the records show that on this day 69% of the Dogecoin network was taken down by a single ThinkPad in rural El Salvador,” Kohl wrote as he quoted the @EffeciencyDOGE post showcasing the crash.

Let the records show that on this day 69% of the Dogecoin network was taken down by a single ThinkPad in rural El Salvador. https://t.co/BgJovDsySG

In a separate post, Kohl credited Tobias Ruck, the researcher who discovered the vulnerability on the Dogecoin network that crashed the nodes. The vulnerability is called the “DogeReaper,” which has the ability to crash any Dogecoin node if given the chance. The @EfficiencyDOGE account shared a public disclosure post that included a video and instructions on how to exploit the critical vulnerability.

“DogeReaper is a critical vulnerability on Dogecoin, allowing anyone to crash any Dogecoin node remotely,” @EfficiencyDOGE wrote.

The account explained that the vulnerability works similarly to the “Death Note” in the popular Japanese manga of the same name. In the plot, the main character writes down a person's name in a cursed notebook, and that person instantly dies.

With “DogeReaper,” the concept is very similar. All a hacker has to do is type out the address of the Dogecoin node they want to crash, and that node will instantly ‘die’ of a Segmentation Fault.

Because the addresses of Dogecoin nodes are public knowledge, the account stated that “anyone could crash the entire Dogecoin network in an instant.”

“If a malicious actor would’ve found this bug instead of us, he could have stopped the Dogecoin network for at least a few days, with no transactions or blocks,” the account said.

Kohl's hack apparently had little to no effect on the Dogecoin price. According to crypto.news, DOGE rose by 3.1% in the past 24 hours of trading, with a 24-hour trading volume of $7.3 billion.

Moreover, the account claimed that Ruck and RoqqitDev sent multiple disclosures to the network and major exchanges to stop people from exploiting the vulnerability.

Upon receiving the information, Binance promised to fix the vulnerability sometime “this week.” Meanwhile, Coinbase reviewed the report and rated the severity of DogeReaper as “low” before marking the ticket with the status “informative” and rewarding Ruck with $200.