What is Byzantine failure?

Byzantine failure is a situation in which parts or nodes in a distributed system act irrationally or maliciously, frequently in violation of the protocols or rules that are intended to govern the system i.e the components of the system may fail or there is incorrect information on whether the component has failed or not.

Are Byzantine failures a problem in distributed systems?

The dependability and fault tolerance of distributed systems must be guaranteed in the realm of system design. The integrity and consistency of these systems, however, can be seriously hampered by the existence of Byzantine failures.

Are Byzantine faults really a problem?

However, this problem is not yet sufficiently understood by those who design, build, and maintain systems with high dependability requirements. Today, there are still many misconceptions relating to Byzantine failure, what makes a system vulnerable, and indeed the very nature and reality of Byzantine faults.