Hidden Lightning Network Bug Allowed Spending of ‘Fake’ Bitcoins

A bug discovered in the Lightning Network in June, which allowed lightning bitcoins not backed by actual bitcoins to be spent, has officially been addressed in a new dev full disclosure report released on Friday. The problem has reportedly been remedied, but the security oversight casts doubts on an already heavily scrutinized protocol, and whether a proper release of LN anytime soon is actually feasible.

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Lightning Bug in June

On June 27, developer Rusty Russell discovered the security flaw while running tests on the network. As the bug was not independently discovered by malicious entities, it is unlikely that major damage was done, although conclusive evidence did show that at least one exploitation of the bug did occur “in the wild” on September 7. A quiet fix was made and the issue was revealed in August after most users had upgraded, culminating in the September 27 release of the full…