Lightning Labs CTO addresses $500M node security bug

Lightning Labs CTO Olaoluwa Osuntokun has downplayed concerns over a reported security vulnerability affecting Lightning Network nodes, which currently hold a capacity of 5,145 BTC (CRYPTO:BTC), worth approximately $500 million.

Osuntokun suggested the issue stemmed from a compromised user machine rather than a flaw in the Lightning Network Daemon (LND) software.

The alert was initially raised by Satoshi Labs co-founder Pavol Rusnak, who urged users of LND versions older than 0.18.5 and Lightning Terminal versions older than 0.14.1 to upgrade immediately.

Rusnak warned of potential exploits leading to fund drainage.

Osuntokun clarified that the problem did not appear to be within LND itself.

LND is a complete implementation of a Lightning Network node.

The Lightning Network, a layer-2 scaling solution for Bitcoin, enables faster transactions among participating nodes.

It has been proposed as a solution to Bitcoin's scalability problem.

Separately, a potential vulnerability impacting the broader Bitcoin network was disclosed on GitHub on February 13.

This issue involves a weakness in the ECDSA (Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm) signature implementation, potentially leading to private key exposure.

The elliptic library, a JavaScript package used for elliptic curve cryptography operations by Bitcoin, may have resulted in reused nonces.

Security experts recommend keeping Bitcoin wallets up-to-date and patching or upgrading any vulnerable elliptic packages.

The Security Alliance team stated that wallets would be secure if correct protocols are followed.