A Systematic Literature Review on the Security and Privacy of the Blockchain and Cryptocurrency

A blockchain can be summarized as a decentralized ledger of all transactions across a peer-to-peer network. It is the main technology behind the large number of diverse cryptocurrencies that are currently available in circulation. Since its introduction, the blockchain technology has shown promising application prospects and attracted lot of attention from both academia and industry. It also has become an obvious target to adversaries. In this paper, we conduct a systematic literature review on the security vulnerabilities and cyber-attacks to blockchain and cryptocurrency by searching and analyzing previous research papers indexed in reputable journal databases. Based on our findings, we then summarize the most common and critical security threats and attacks and the current countermeasures.