Bitcoin Lightning Network users could have lost millions in jamming attack
In December 2022, Bitcoin ’s most popular scaling solution, the Lightning Network, experienced a critical vulnerability error. Had a hacker exploited this error, many users could have lost their Bitcoin . For context, there are thousands of users and at least 5,500 Bitcoin worth at least $150 million in the Lightning Network. Now that the bug is patched and Bitcoin’s most popular second layer is safe to use, Lightning developer Antoine Riard has disclosed the full details of the vulnerability. Riard’s post-mortem of the vulnerability admits that many Lightning users could have lost their funds entirely. Riard also explained the code maintenance required to prevent these so-called ‘transaction-relay jamming attacks’ from recurring in the future. The bug is the latest in a long series of Lightning bugs. Protos has been following an underreported series of them , including the unattributed payment routing bug from November 2022, the BTCD library bug from October 2022,...