Bitcoin Core changes security policy as AI makes bugs easier to find

Bitcoin Core says keeping certain vulnerabilities secret no longer offers much protection in the wake of AI-assisted bug hunting.

Bitcoin Core is changing how it handles security vulnerabilities, explaining that large language models have made certain software flaws significantly easier to discover. 

In an email to the Bitcoin Development Mailing List on Thursday, Bitcoin Core developer Antoine Poinsot said that in the past, vulnerabilities were generally kept under lengthy disclosure embargoes to give users time to upgrade before details became public.

Maintaining that secrecy generally meant fixes could not be backported to older software versions, leaving users waiting until the next major release. However, Poinsot said LLMs have made some flaws so easy to rediscover that delaying fixes offers little protection.

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