White-hat message when sending transactions with older versions

[adaseb]

Basically been a while since I've last used Electrum. And today for the first time I got the "white-hat" message saying that my version is Vulnerable and to please upgrade at the correct site pointed to: https://electrum.org/

My question is what other vulnerabilites are there exactly besides the fake message when sending the transaction? I use cold storage and rather keep the older versions rather than upgrading both OS versions.

Thank you

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[adaseb]

The only critical vulnerability i remember was JSONRPC bug where attacker can brute-force your wallet when you're online and open browser, if your wallet isn't protected, your coins would be stolen immediately.

More info : http://docs.electrum.org/en/latest/cve.html

Yes that is from version 3.0.4 and older, but I am wondering if the  > 3.0.4 versions have any vulnerabilities besides the "fake message"?

[BitMaxz]

This is the only 2 vulnerabilities that I heard before.

- They gain access via JSONRPC command
- Phishing attacks from electrum servers.

And another vulnerability that I heard is the Phishing website where they promote fake electrum software. You can mostly see this on google ads.

[jackg]

Other than the JSON-RPC bug and the fake message one there shouldn't be any issues (other than the obvious ones which still probably exist now - such as viruses and trojans).

The 'white-hat' message still allows for your coins to be sent (I think it says that at the start) there's a list of release notes from the electrum website (avaliable here: https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/master/RELEASE-NOTES) which will tell you the main updates that have been done to the software.

[Abdussamad]

Basically been a while since I've last used Electrum. And today for the first time I got the "white-hat" message saying that my version is Vulnerable and to please upgrade at the correct site pointed to: https://electrum.org/

My question is what other vulnerabilites are there exactly besides the fake message when sending the transaction? I use cold storage and rather keep the older versions rather than upgrading both OS versions.

Thank you

You won't be able to do offline signing if you have the old version on your cold storage system. That's because with 3.2 they changed the unsigned transaction format.

You haven't told us what version you are using? There were many bugs discovered in 2018. The json RPC one, a bug related to parsing segwit transactions, a wallet file corruption bug and of course the phishing message. The latter is just a message. It is harmless if you ignore it. If it won't let you spend your coins just switch servers.

[pooya87]

The only critical vulnerability i remember was JSONRPC bug where attacker can brute-force your wallet when you're online and open browser, if your wallet isn't protected, your coins would be stolen immediately.

More info : http://docs.electrum.org/en/latest/cve.html

it wasn't a "brute force" it was simply a call to the JSON-RPC interface which could access your secret information IF you didn't have any passwords but if you had the simplest password it would have protected you.

to OP:
see here what you are missing by using the old version https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/master/RELEASE-NOTES

[pooya87]

The only critical vulnerability i remember was JSONRPC bug where attacker can brute-force your wallet when you're online and open browser, if your wallet isn't protected, your coins would be stolen immediately.

More info : http://docs.electrum.org/en/latest/cve.html

it wasn't a "brute force" it was simply a call to the JSON-RPC interface which could access your secret information IF you didn't have any passwords but if you had the simplest password it would have protected you.

to OP:
see here what you are missing by using the old version https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/master/RELEASE-NOTES

It could be used to brute-force if the user open electrum and browser for hours even though it's last resort as attacker need wait few seconds for response.

theoretically yes, it is possible to do that but in practice it is impossible because the encryption that electrum uses for secret stuff (seeds and private keys) is AES-256 and that is a strong encryption that can not be brute forced that easily on its own. then you add the delays and restrictions of JOS-RPC and it becomes near impossible to perform it since it requires chained calls with each password iteration.

[Lucius]

Yes that is from version 3.0.4 and older, but I am wondering if the  > 3.0.4 versions have any vulnerabilities besides the "fake message"?

That fake message is cost a lot of bitcoins for many naive users, and even today poses a threat for those who still use versions where hackers can send phishing links. One user is reported a few days ago that he download Electrum version 4.0.0 and all his coins are gone.

So if you use older version then 3.3.3 my advice is to definitely make a update, not only because of phisning expolit fix, but also because of some other bug fixes. Since Electrum is very popular light wallet ( at least it was until recently ), hackers will continue with the search for new possible exploits.

[adaseb]

Basically been a while since I've last used Electrum. And today for the first time I got the "white-hat" message saying that my version is Vulnerable and to please upgrade at the correct site pointed to: https://electrum.org/

My question is what other vulnerabilites are there exactly besides the fake message when sending the transaction? I use cold storage and rather keep the older versions rather than upgrading both OS versions.

Thank you

You won't be able to do offline signing if you have the old version on your cold storage system. That's because with 3.2 they changed the unsigned transaction format.

You haven't told us what version you are using? There were many bugs discovered in 2018. The json RPC one, a bug related to parsing segwit transactions, a wallet file corruption bug and of course the phishing message. The latter is just a message. It is harmless if you ignore it. If it won't let you spend your coins just switch servers.

The version in my cold storage system is really old. I think its even from 2017. Last year I upgraded to 3.0.5 to fix the JSON RCP exploit on my hot wallet system, I did a test tranasctions on the cold storage system to sign a message, it worked so I just left it as is. I don't recall the version however, will need to power up the system and check in the future.

I don't use any Segwit tranasctions however, because I assumed it wouldn't work in my cold storage software version.


Thanks for everybody that replied with the info. So far it looks like just a message I can ignore.

[jackg]

If you run into synchronisation issues you might have to update wallet software but until then you are probably fine with just the json bug and the error message.

[Abdussamad]

I don't use any Segwit tranasctions however, because I assumed it wouldn't work in my cold storage software version.


Thanks for everybody that replied with the info. So far it looks like just a message I can ignore.

You may not use segwit but others may spend segwit outputs in your favour. For example exchanges. Old versions have trouble recognizing these outputs.

If you don't intend to spend money from cold storage anytime soon then you don't have to upgrade the cold wallet (you should still keep the watch-only up to date). But you will have to update the cold wallet when you need to move your coins.

[adaseb]

I don't use any Segwit tranasctions however, because I assumed it wouldn't work in my cold storage software version.


Thanks for everybody that replied with the info. So far it looks like just a message I can ignore.

You may not use segwit but others may spend segwit outputs in your favour. For example exchanges. Old versions have trouble recognizing these outputs.

If you don't intend to spend money from cold storage anytime soon then you don't have to upgrade the cold wallet (you should still keep the watch-only up to date). But you will have to update the cold wallet when you need to move your coins.

I had a similiar issue to this however it only affected the hot-wallet (watching wallet) because it wouldn't sync. I've upgraded that version and managed to get the transaction signed on the offline computer.

I assumed Segwit was backwards compatible so using old versions should still work?

[HCP]

I had a similiar issue to this however it only affected the hot-wallet (watching wallet) because it wouldn't sync. I've upgraded that version and managed to get the transaction signed on the offline computer.

You might find that having different "hot" and "cold" wallet versions may not work... Users have had difficulty in the past with this sort of setup because the unsigned transaction format changed slightly between certain versions of Electrum... so the older version on the offline machine was unable to decode and sign the unsigned transaction created by the newer version. Keeping the online and offline wallet versions the same is generally considered best practice.

I assumed Segwit was backwards compatible so using old versions should still work?

Technically it is backwards compatible at the raw Bitcoin protocol level...

However, with Electrum, you have extra layers on top... So, it's more that the older versions of Electrum don't quite know how to handle the "unexpected" data, and can end up in an endless synchronising loop. I believe that when you export an unsigned transaction in Electrum, it includes all the necessary transaction data for the offline system to be able to sign it... so if your exported, unsigned transaction includes SegWit outputs, the older offline version may not know how to handle that and fail to sign the transaction.

[pooya87]

I assumed Segwit was backwards compatible so using old versions should still work?

Technically it is backwards compatible at the raw Bitcoin protocol level...

However, with Electrum, you have extra layers on top... So, it's more that the older versions of Electrum don't quite know how to handle the "unexpected" data, and can end up in an endless synchronising loop. I believe that when you export an unsigned transaction in Electrum, it includes all the necessary transaction data for the offline system to be able to sign it... so if your exported, unsigned transaction includes SegWit outputs, the older offline version may not know how to handle that and fail to sign the transaction.

the meaning of "backward compatibility" when it comes to SegWit is a bit complicated.it is technically backward compatible, the thing is the way it can become backward compatible in full nodes is that the "new" nodes "translate" segwit transactions into old types so that the "old" nodes understand it. it is basically stripping off the witness part. so in order to make it with with Electrum they had to also upgrade the backend servers to send this "translated" version to Electrum wallets but they never did that for some reason so old versions still receive the full transaction with the witness part and everything so they get stuck.

as for the signing offline, it has nothing to do with SegWit. it is about the format of the scriptsig in raw unsigned transactions that they changed. previously you put something different (only the address hash with a script starting with 0xff) and now you include something very different (your master public key with the path to the key that needs to sign it). so the old versions can not parse this scriptsig and reject it for that.

[Abdussamad]

@adaseb as I told you above they changed the unsigned transaction format in version 3.2. So if you are using less than 3.2 on the cold wallet you won't be able to sign unsigned transactions created by a watch only version >=3.2.

[adaseb]

@adaseb as I told you above they changed the unsigned transaction format in version 3.2. So if you are using less than 3.2 on the cold wallet you won't be able to sign unsigned transactions created by a watch only version >=3.2.

Ahh, for some reason I assumed you were talking about version 3.0.2 and I am currently using 3.0.5, didn't realise so many newer versions were released in the mean time.

Version 3.0.2 seems to work perfectly fine with non-segwit transactions when using version 2.7.x on the cold storage system.

Wondering if there are any other vulerabilities besides the fake message between versions 3.0.6 - 3.3.4 which would prompt an upgrade? Looking at the notes, I don't see any severe bugs or vulnerabilites.

[Abdussamad]

Wondering if there are any other vulerabilities besides the fake message between versions 3.0.6 - 3.3.4 which would prompt an upgrade? Looking at the notes, I don't see any severe bugs or vulnerabilites.

wallet file corruption and the phishing message one would apply to you.