Telegram Tips Bot @lntxbot Hacked

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Eclair

The Eclair wallet functions as a standard send/receive wallet but also allows you to open a payment channel to recieve or make payments. The Lightning Transmission Bot on Telegram (@lntxbot) was using the Eclair API to enable it's functionality. Due to an exploit in that hot wallet, the funds in the wallet were able to be taken. It appears that someone else on Twitter volunteered to replace them since the amount was small enough.

This is a global/international case not involving a specific country.

About Eclair

"[A]lthough Lightning is a valid utility of the Bitcoin protocol, while users are within the Lightning Network their transactions and activities do not benefit from Bitcoin’s blockchain."

"In particular, Lightning Network transactions are not quickly validated by 12,000 globally distributed full nodes, nor secured by 160 million terahashes per second. Until they leave Lightning and settle on-blockchain, users must trust a relatively small number of counterparties."

"Founded in 2014, ACINQ is a French startup building products and services for the Bitcoin ecosystem. We are based in Paris, France." "ACINQ is one of the leading companies working on Bitcoin scalability. Together with other members of the community, we are building an open standard for Lightning, a scalable instant payment network for the Bitcoin blockchain."

"Éclair by French unit ACINQ is" "[a] popular Bitcoin tipping bot for Telegram messenger powered by the Lightning Network." "Éclair is one of the Lightning Network’s top-three implementations. The other two are LND by Lightning Labs, and C-Lightning by Blockstream."

"Eclair is developed in Scala, a powerful functional language that runs on the JVM, and is packaged as a ZIP archive." "Eclair Mobile is a next generation, Lightning-ready Bitcoin wallet. It can be used as a regular Bitcoin wallet, and can also connect to the Lightning Network for cheap and instant payments."

"Eclair offers a feature-rich HTTP API that enables application developers to easily integrate. For more information please visit the API documentation website. Eclair's JSON API should NOT be accessible from the outside world (similarly to Bitcoin Core API)."

"[The] popular Bitcoin tipping bot for Telegram messenger powered by the Lightning Network was exploited over the weekend by hackers who stole 14 million satoshis (0.14 BTC, worth about $9,480)."

"In last weekend’s Lightning Network Transaction Bot theft, the attackers exploited the Éclair API." "A group of thieves have exploited a very subtle vulnerability on @lntxbot yesterday and stolen ~14 million sats." "According to Lightning Network Transaction Bot’s Twitter account, hackers exploited a vulnerability in Éclair’s API to siphon the Bitcoin."

"The cause of the theft was a reliance on the output of `getsentinfo` from Eclair API being `[]` only when no payment was being attempted for a given payment hash, when in fact it will be that for a few seconds even after the `payinvoice` method is called."

"getsentinfo may return [] because it doesn't know anything about the given --paymentHash or --id, which means a payment wasn't performed or attempted, and is not pending."

"But it may also return [] for a payment that is in process of being attempted, for some seconds or fractions of second before it is actually attempted, which has the opposite meaning."

"For services that send payouts automatically on behalf of users and then check these payment statuses automatically this can lead to terrible loss of funds."

"According to ACINQ’s Éclair GitHub repository, it is a “feature-rich HTTP API that enables application developers to easily integrate” its Scala implementation of the Lightning Network. The repository page warns that the JSON API should not be easily accessible to the outside world."

"The bot will be offline while we figure out what to do next." Someone named Alistair Milne said "I will replace the funds, DM me".

This is a global/international case not involving a specific country.

The background of the exchange platform, service, or individuals involved, as it would have been seen or understood at the time of the events.

Include:

• Known history of when and how the service was started.
• What problems does the company or service claim to solve?
• What marketing materials were used by the firm or business?
• Audits performed, and excerpts that may have been included.
• Business registration documents shown (fake or legitimate).
• How were people recruited to participate?
• Public warnings and announcements prior to the event.

Don't Include:

• Any wording which directly states or implies that the business is/was illegitimate, or that a vulnerability existed.
• Anything that wasn't reasonably knowable at the time of the event.

There could be more than one section here. If the same platform is involved with multiple incidents, then it can be linked to a main article page.

The Reality

This sections is included if a case involved deception or information that was unknown at the time. Examples include:

• When the service was actually started (if different than the "official story").
• Who actually ran a service and their own personal history.
• How the service was structured behind the scenes. (For example, there was no "trading bot".)
• Details of what audits reported and how vulnerabilities were missed during auditing.

What Happened

The specific events of the loss and how it came about. What actually happened to cause the loss and some of the events leading up to it.

Key Event Timeline - Telegram Tips Bot @lntxbot Hacked

Date	Event	Description
November 6th, 2021 12:37:00 PM	Main Event	Expand this into a brief description of what happened and the impact. If multiple lines are necessary, add them here.

Total Amount Lost

The total amount lost has been estimated at $9,000 USD.

How much was lost and how was it calculated? If there are conflicting reports, which are accurate and where does the discrepancy lie?

Immediate Reactions

How did the various parties involved (firm, platform, management, and/or affected individual(s)) deal with the events? Were services shut down? Were announcements made? Were groups formed?

Ultimate Outcome

What was the end result? Was any investigation done? Were any individuals prosecuted? Was there a lawsuit? Was any tracing done?

Total Amount Recovered

The total amount recovered has been estimated at $9,000 USD.

What funds were recovered? What funds were reimbursed for those affected users?

Ongoing Developments

What parts of this case are still remaining to be concluded?

Prevention Policies

Which policies could have prevented this event from happening?