Possible current attack on lightning network. Node temporarily offline to await information and patch.

Posted over 2 years ago by InternationalRoutingServi

Some of my channels have closed outside of my doing. I suspect this to be some sort of attack, or exploit being actively tested. My lightning node is temporarily stopped until the patch for clightning is ready. If you had a channel open with me that closed, we can reestablish them. If you currently have a channel open to me, be patient, I will be back online in less than a week. I stopped the lightning router to prevent channel closures from this suspected attack. See this for details https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning/issues/4851 Posting here as a PSA and to gain attention to this issue I reported on github. If this is some sort of attack it could be disruptive to the lightning network at scale if not fixed immediately and cause on chain congestion. If anyone has information on what is going on in my scenario please share.

1 Comment

LN+

LN+ Admin wrote over 2 years ago

Channels can be cooperatively or force closed by any party on the two ends of a channel. If you open a channel, the node you opened the channel to can initiate a channel closure. Every node has a control over what channels they want to maintain open.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the situation, but that doesn't seem like an attack but normal operation of the LN. 

Please login to post comments.

Lightning Network Node
InternationalRoutingService
Rank: 0
Capacity: 29,604,465 SAT
Channels: 8