Offenses & Slashes on Polkadot
Various parachains or applications living on top of Polkadot might add various economic schemes and include slashes, but they are unrelated to the slashes described here as they only refer to the staked tokens via Nominated Proof-of-Stake.
Polkadot is a public permissionless network. As such, it has a mechanism to disincentivize offenses and incentivize good behavior. Below, you can find a summary of punishments for specific offenses:
| Offense | Slash (%) | On-chain Disabling | Off-chain Disabling | Reputational Changes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Backing Invalid | 100% | Yes | Yes (High Priority) | No |
| ForInvalid Vote | - | No | Yes (Mid Priority) | No |
| AgainstValid Vote | - | No | Yes (Low Priority) | No |
| GRANDPA / BABE / BEEFY Equivocations | 0.01-100% | Yes | No | No |
| Seconded + Valid Equivocation | - | No | No | No |
| Double Seconded Equivocation | - | No | No | Yes |
Offenses
To better understand the terminology used for offenses, it is recommended to get familiar with the parachain protocol.
On Polkadot, there are six main validator offenses as shown below.
- Backing Invalid: A para-validator is backing an invalid block.
- ForInvalid Vote: A validator (secondary checker) votes in favor of an invalid block.
- AgainstValid Vote: A validator (secondary checker) is voting against a valid block (and wasting network resources).
- Equivocation: A validator produces two or more of the same block or vote.
- GRANDPA and BEEFY Equivocation: A validator signs two or more votes in the same round on different chains.
- BABE Equivocation: A validator produces two or more blocks on the Relay Chain in the same time slot.
- Double Seconded Equivocation: Within a backing group of 5 para-validators, at most 5 backed parablocks are possible. Each parablock requires exactly one seconded and at least two more valid votes from the five potential backers. This makes an upper bound on the number of parablocks the system has to deal with while still allowing some choice for relay chain block authors. Backers must decide which parablock to second, and they cannot second another. If another seconding vote is found, they will be punished (somewhat lightly as of now, but there is little to gain from this). All of this is made slightly more complicated with asynchronous backing as it is no longer one candidate per relay chain block as backers can back blocks "into the future" optimistically. See this page for more information.
- Seconded + Valid Equivocation: This happens when a malicious node first seconds something (takes absolute responsibility for it), and then only pretends to be someone who just said it is correct after someone else takes responsibility. That is a straight-up lie (equivocation). A node could use that tactic to escape responsibility, but once the system notices the two conflicting votes, the offense is reported.
Equivocation (Conflicting Statements)
Equivocation occurs when a validator produces statements that conflict with each other.
For instance, as a block author appointed by BABE, only a single block should be authored for the given slot, and if two or more are authored, they are in conflict with each other. This would be a BABE Equivocation Offence.
In BEEFY & GRANDPA validators are expected to cast a single vote for the block they believe is the best, but if they are found with two or more votes for different blocks, it means they tried to confuse the network with conflicting statements and when found out this will be a BEEFY/GRANDPA Equivocation Offense.
Equivocations usually occur when duplicate signing keys reside on the validator host. If keys are never duplicated, the probability of an honest equivocation slash decreases to near 0.
Punishments
On Polkadot, offenses to the network can be punished depending on their severity. There are three main punishments: slashing, disabling, and reputation changes.
Slashing
Slashing will happen if a validator misbehaves in the network. They and their nominators will get slashed by losing a percentage of their staked DOT, from as little as 0.01% up to 100%.
Any slashed DOT will be added to the Treasury. The rationale for this (rather than burning or distributing them as rewards) is that slashes may be reverted by simply paying out from the Treasury. This would be useful in situations such as faulty slashes. In the case of legitimate slashing, tokens are moved away from malicious validators to those building the ecosystem through the normal Treasury process.
Slashing only occurs for active validations for a given nominator, and slashes are not mitigated by having other inactive or waiting nominations. They are also not mitigated by the validator operator running separate nodes; each node is considered its own entity for slashing purposes.
In rare instances, with very large bonds, a nominator may actively nominate several validators in a single era. In this case, the slash is proportionate to the amount staked to that specific validator. Note that you cannot control the percentage of stake allocated to each validator or choose who your active validator will be (except in the trivial case of nominating a single validator). Staking allocations are controlled by the Phragmén algorithm.
Once a validator gets slashed, it goes into the state as an "unapplied slash". You can check this via Polkadot-JS UI. The UI shows it per validator, followed by all the affected nominators and the amounts. While unapplied, a governance proposal can be made to reverse it during a 27-day grace period, after which the slashes are applied.
A slash may occur under the circumstances below:
- Equivocations – A slash of 0.01% is applied with as little as a single evocation. The slashed amount increases to 100% incrementally as more validators also equivocate.
- Disputes – This may result from a validator trying to represent the contents of a block falsely . Slashing penalties of 100% may apply.
Slash for Equivocation
The following levels of offense are defined. However, these particular levels are not implemented or referred to in the code or the system; they are meant as guidelines for different levels of severity for offenses.
- Level 1: Isolated equivocation slashes a minimal amount of the stake.
- Level 2: Misconducts unlikely to be accidental but do not harm the network's security to any large extent. Examples include concurrent equivocation or isolated cases of unjustified voting in GRANDPA. Slashes a moderately small amount of the stake.
- Level 3: misconduct that poses severe security or monetary risk to the system or mass collusion. Slashes all or most of the stake behind the validator.
The following are scenarios that build towards slashes under equivocation:
- Cloning a server, i.e., copying all contents when migrating to new hardware. This action should be avoided. If an image is desired, it should be taken before keys are generated.
- High Availability (HA) Systems – Equivocation can occur if there are any concurrent operations, either when a failed server restarts or if a false positive event results in both servers being online simultaneously. HA systems are to be treated with extreme caution and are not advised.
- The keystore folder is copied when attempting to copy a database from one instance to another.
It is important to note that equivocation slashes occur with a single incident. This can happen if duplicated keystores are used for only a few seconds. A slash can result in losing nominators and funds, removal from the Thousand Validator Programme, and reputational damage.
See the next section to understand how slash amounts for equivocations are calculated. If you want to know more details about slashing, please look at our research page.
Slash Calculation for Equivocation
GRANDPA, BABE, and BEEFY equivocation use the same formula for calculating the slashing penalty:
Let x = offenders, n = total number of validators in the active set
min((3 * x / n )^2, 1)
For example, assume that there are 100 validators in the active set, and one equivocates in a slot (for our purposes, it does not matter whether it was a BABE or GRANDPA equivocation). This is unlikely to be an attack on the network but much more likely to be a misconfiguration of a validator. The penalty would be min(3 * 1 / 100)^2, 1) = 0.0009, or a 0.09% slash for that validator (i.e., the stake held by the validator and its nominators).
Now, assume that a group is running several validators, and they all have an issue in the same slot. The penalty would be min((3 * 5 / 100)^2, 1) = 0.0225, or a 2.25% slash. If 20 validators equivocate, this is a much more serious offense, possibly indicating a coordinated attack on the network. So, the slash will be much greater - min((3 * 20 / 100)^2, 1) = 0.36, or a 36% slash on all these validators and their nominators. All slashed validators will also be chilled.
The example above shows the risk of nominating or running many validators in the active set. While rewards grow linearly (two validators will get you approximately twice as many staking rewards as one) slashing grows exponentially. A single validator equivocating causes a 0.09% slash, and two validators equivocating does not cause a 0.09 * 2 = 0.18% slash, but rather a 0.36% slash - 4x as much as the single validator.
Validators may run their nodes on multiple machines to ensure they can still perform validation work if one of their nodes goes down. Still, validator operators should be cautious when setting these up. Equivocation is possible if they do not have good coordination in managing signing machines.
Good Practices to Avoid Slashing
The following are advised to node operators to ensure that they obtain pristine binaries or source code and to ensure the security of their node:
- Always download either source files or binaries from the official Parity repository
- Verify the hash of downloaded files.
- Use the W3F secure validator setup or adhere to its principles
- Ensure essential security items are checked, use a firewall, manage user access, use SSH certificates
- Avoid using your server as a general-purpose system. Hosting a validator on your workstation or one that hosts other services increases the risk of maleficence.
Below are some examples of small equivocations that happened in the past.
| Network | Era | Event Type | Details | Action Taken |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Polkadot | 774 | Small Equivocation | The validator migrated servers and cloned the keystore folder. The on-chain event can be viewed here. | The validator did not submit a request for the slash to be canceled. |
| Kusama | 3329 | Small Equivocation | The validator operated a test machine with cloned keys; the test machine was online at the same time as the primary, which resulted in a slash. Details can be found here. | The validator requested a slash cancellation, but the council declined. |
| Kusama | 3995 | Small Equivocation | The validator noticed several errors, after which the client crashed, and a slash was applied. The validator recorded all events and opened GitHub issues to allow for technical opinions to be shared. Details can be found here. | The validator requested to cancel the slash. The council approved the request as they believed the error was not operator-related. |
Slashing Across Eras
There are three main difficulties to account for with slashing in NPoS:
- A nominator can nominate multiple validators and be slashed via any of them.
- Until slashed, the stake is reused from era to era. Nominating with N coins for E eras in a row does not mean you have N*E coins to be slashed - you've only ever had N.
- Slashable offenses can be found after the fact and out of order.
To balance this, the system applies only the maximum slash a participant can receive in a given time period rather than the sum. This ensures protection from overslashing.
Disabling
Disabling stops validators from performing specific actions after they have committed an offense. Disabling is further divided into:
- On-chain disabling lasts for a whole era and stops validators from block authoring, backing, and initiating a dispute.
- Off-chain disabling lasts for a session, is caused by losing a dispute, and stops validators from initiating a dispute.
Off-chain disabling is always a lower priority than on-chain disabling. Off-chain disabling prioritizes disabling first backers and then approval checkers.
Reputation Changes
Some minor offenses often connected to spamming are only punished by Networking Reputation Changes. When validators connect to each other, they use a reputation metric for each of their peers. If our peers provide valuable data and behave appropriately, the system adds reputation; if they provide us with faulty or spam data, the system reduces their reputation. A validator can lose enough reputation so that the peers will temporarily close their channels. This helps in fighting against DoS (Denial of Service) attacks. The consequences of closing channels may vary. In general, performing validator tasks under reduced reputation will be harder, resulting in lower validator rewards.