A New Lightning Attack Has Been Discovered

Warning from experts; It is possible to empty Bitcoin wallets on the Lightning Network. A study published on June 29 explained that there is a way to empty Bitcoin (BTC) wallets on the Lightning Network by exploiting a bottleneck in the system. According to the research, Jona Harris and Aviv Zohar from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem described a systematic attack that allows the theft of Bitcoin funds locked in payment channels on the Lightning Network.

Flooding the Blockchain with Simultaneous Attacks

The Lighting Network is used to send payments through intermediary nodes, and these nodes can lead to Bitcoin theft. This often needs to be done quickly, which can be extended by attackers flooding the network. For the attack to be successful, only 85 channels need to be attacked simultaneously.

Details Behind the Attack

Researchers provided more details about the attack:

“The main idea behind Hash Time Locked Contracts (HTLC) is that once created, payments are withdrawn by the target node by providing secret information (such as a preview of the hash) from the previous node.  The attacker routes a payment between two of his nodes and withdraws the payment at the end of the path. When the payment is requested to be withdrawn from the source node, it refuses to cooperate and forces the victim to make the transaction via blockchain.”