Major vulnerabilities fixed and network improvements introduced in the new update of the Bitcoin reference implementation.
On October 2nd, after six months of development, Bitcoin Core version 28.0 was released. The update brings significant security improvements and network performance enhancements, addressing several critical issues that emerged in recent months.
Security focus
The most significant development concerns the correction of a vulnerability that had exposed approximately one-sixth of Bitcoin nodes (versions older than v.24.0.1) to potential attacks. The issue allowed malicious actors to execute Denial of Service attacks (DoS), overloading nodes with excessive data volume until causing them to crash.
Technical updates and improvements
The update introduces several new features:
- Enhanced connectivity: the software now supports up to 125 simultaneous connections with other nodes, with 11 outbound connections by default.
- Optimized Tor management: users can now disable Tor connections when not needed, offering greater flexibility.
- New test environment: introduced support for Testnet4, which will gradually replace the previous Testnet3.
The introduction of “reproducible builds” has been particularly well-received by the community. This feature will allow more experienced users to independently verify the software’s authenticity by compiling versions identical to the official ones.
