Bitcoin Core changes security rules as AI makes finding code bugs dangerously easy
Bitcoin Core has updated its security disclosure policy because AI tools make it significantly easier for attackers to identify and exploit software vulnerabilities. The new policy prioritizes rapid patching and public disclosure over the previous 'bake time' embargo model.
Why it matters
It highlights how generative AI is forcing a fundamental shift in cybersecurity and open-source software maintenance strategies.
Core previously graded every reported vulnerability by severity and timed disclosure accordingly. Low-severity flaws were revealed two weeks after the next major version shipped. Medium and high ones stayed under embargo until two weeks after the last affected version reached end of life.
The logic was that shipping a fix quietly and explaining it much later kept attackers from learning about a hole before the people running nodes, the computers that check and relay every bitcoin transaction, had upgraded.
But the old rule was built for a world where finding a bug took skill, and the spread of AI tools has broken how that process worked.
“We recently experienced an increase in the number of reports for security vulnerabilities that can be easily (re-)discovered,” Antoine Poinsot, the Chaincode Labs developer who wrote the change, said in his proposal.
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