The Lightning Network is susceptible to attacks that could drain Bitcoin wallets by flooding the blockchain.
A study published on June 29 revealed a way to drain Bitcoin (BTC) wallets’ funds on the Lightning Network by exploiting a bottleneck in the system.
According to the “Flood & Loot: A Systemic Attack On The Lightning Network” paper, Jona Harris and Aviv Zohar from the Hebrew University in Israel evaluated a systemic attack on the Lightning Network that allows for the theft of BTC funds that were locked in payment channels.
Flooding the blockchain with simultaneous attacks
The Lighting Network is used to send payments through intermediary nodes, which can be leveraged to steal Bitcoin. This usually must be done quickly. However, the effective window of time could be extended by hackers flooding the network.
For the attack to be successful, hackers would only need to attack 85 channels simultaneously in order to steal funds from the network.
Details behind the attack
Researchers provided more details, noting:
“The key idea behind Hash Time Locked Contracts (HTLC) is that after they are established, payments are ‘pulled’ by the target node from the previous node in the path by providing a secret (a preimage of a hash). Our attacker will route a payment between his own two nodes, and pull the payment at the end of the path. He will refuse to cooperate when the payment is eventually pulled from the source node – forcing the victim to do so via a blockchain transaction.”
The paper clarifies that the results of the study were shared with the developers of the three main Lightning implementations prior to publishing the report.
Cointelegraph reported that the Vietnamese online ticketing agency, Future.Travel, now accepts Bitcoin payments via the Lightning Network. Funds are converted into local currency at the time of sale.
Source: , CoinTelegraph
Articles listed with Cash Tech News as the author are either general information, or may have been imported from another website, to bring our readers a rich media experience that encompasses articles that we find interesting, as well as those curated by others.
The views and opinions expressed here are for informational purposes only, and should not be confused with professional financial advice. These opinions are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of CashTechNews.com. Every investment and trade involves risk. You should conduct your own research, and contact your professional financial advisor before making any investment.
Corrections, feedback, and ideas should be submitted through the website contact form.