Lightning Network Exploits:
The researchers Jona Harris and Aviv Zohar recently published a paper called: “Flood & Loot: A Systemic Attack On The Lightning Network,” which is similar to the griefing attack.
“One of the risks that were identified early on is that of a wide systemic attack on the protocol, in which an attacker triggers the closure of many Lightning channels at once,” explains the paper’s authors. “The resulting high volume of transactions in the blockchain will not allow for the proper settlement of all debts, and attackers may get away with stealing some funds. This paper explores the details of such an attack and evaluates its cost and overall impact on Bitcoin and the Lightning Network.”
Furthermore, on June 2, 2020, Antoine Riard and Gleb Naumenko published a paper on another Lightning Network vulnerability called the “time-dilation attack.” One scary fact that Naumenko and Riard disclose about the time-dilation attack, is that it is “currently possible to steal the total channel capacity by keeping a node eclipsed for as little as 2 hours.”
Not too long after that issue, Antoine Riard recently discussed another susceptible exploit called the “Pinning Attack.” Riard notes that to the best of his knowledge, “currently deployed LN peers aren’t secure against [certain Pinning Attack] scenarios.” One particular scenario “requires heavy, long-term work at the base layer,” Riard stressed.