Lightning Network specification passed the first formal safety test

The first formal review of the Lightning Network (LN) network specification for security yielded positive results, CoinDesk writes .

In their work entitled A Composable Security Treatment of the Lightning Network , which was also attended by IOHK, researchers at the University of Edinburgh Aggelos Kiyaias and Orfeas Litos used mathematical methods to evaluate safety. They studied the underlying cryptography designed to support the LN network and appreciated its reliability.

A Composable Security Treatment of the Lightning Network by Blockchain Journal on Scribd

According to researchers, an honest network member can lose his money only if the signatures or hash function used by Bitcoin are damaged.

“ All parts critical to the system are reliable. It was the expected result – a lot of smart people came together to get closer to the existing Lightning Network implementation. The main conclusion is that the Lightning network is as secure as Bitcoin, ”said Orfeas Litos.

At the same time, they have called the absence of a formal verification of the network specification code “a terrible state of affairs”, since LN already provides transactions and storage of cryptocurrencies of at least $ 8.5 million.

The test results concern only the Lightning Network specification, that is, the rules that developers must comply with. This does not exclude the presence of errors in various implementations created by the developers, the researchers emphasized.

Recall, previously, itcoin developer Rusty Russell discovered a vulnerability in Lightning Network implementations that could lead to a loss of funds.

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