Bitcoin Core Changes Security Rules for Easily Discovered Bugs After AI Identifies 4,962 Issues

According to Bitcoin Core's official security policy, the project changed its security rules on October 22 to accelerate disclosure and patching for vulnerabilities easily discovered through AI tools or simple prompts. The policy update, merged from a GitHub proposal submitted on October 16, introduces faster fixes and public advisories for such "easily discoverable" vulnerabilities across all maintained software versions, abandoning lengthy embargo periods that previously applied to certain flaws.

The urgency followed an AI-assisted security review conducted earlier this year by a volunteer Bitcoin Red Team of 16 developers, which examined 390 Bitcoin-related projects in approximately 30 hours and identified 4,962 potential security issues, including 85 initially classified as critical and 635 as high severity. Contributor Antoine Poinsot explained that large language models have made some security flaws significantly easier to independently identify or rediscover, requiring Bitcoin Core to reassess traditional concealment strategies.