Is Electrum safe to connect?

Self-custody wallet · Bitcoin. Checked 2026-10-25; every line links its source.

Worst case: Electrum is self-custody, so a leaked seed or a fake download can empty the wallet and nobody can reverse it. Until you are on 4.8.3 or later, a malicious server could also get you to sign a fee bump that pays an attacker (an attack reported in October 2026).

Already lost funds? What to do if a bot or wallet is drained.

Safe setup in 3 steps

  1. Download only from electrum.org (its page says not to use any other source), and check the GPG signature of every new version as Electrum's docs describe (the .asc file with gpg --verify)
  2. Update to 4.8.3 or later (Electrum's page lists 4.8.3 as the latest release); until then, check the full address and amount before signing anything, including fee bumps
  3. Connect only to servers you trust, ideally your own, since Electrum says trusted-server users are not exposed to the 4.8.3 attack; never install an 'update' offered in a server message or pop-up

What it can do with your money

Who holds the keysYou hold the keys Self-custody. electrum.org says 'Your private keys are encrypted and never leave your computer' and 'Your funds can be recovered from a secret phrase.' Losing the seed means losing the funds; Electrum cannot recover it. source
Can funds be sent out to any address?Yes. You sign every send yourself, to any address. No one else can block or reverse it. source

Official links

Not fully confirmed. Some of these links were confirmed in only one place, so treat them with care.

Where we confirmed these

Known fakes

Incidents

Items marked "reported by users" are claims we could not confirm with the vendor or a security firm.

DateWhat happenedAmountOutcomeSource
2026-10-23Security release 4.8.3 fixed a flaw that let a malicious Electrum server show a fake pending payment in wallet history; if the user then raised its fee (RBF), they could sign a transaction paying the attacker, whose address matched the last four characters of the real one. Electrum says users connected only to trusted servers, such as their own, were not exposed. Attack details are from press reports of Electrum's advisory; the release notes list the 4.8.3 security fixesNot disclosed. Two incidents were reported to Electrum (2026-10-11 and 2026-10-18); crypto.news says one was a 2-of-3 multisig wallet that sent nearly all its bitcoin to a lookalike address, and another user lost funds while raising a fee. No total is given.Fixed in 4.8.3 (all earlier versions affected); Electrum urged all users to upgradesource source
2019-04-14Malwarebytes documents two 2018-2019 campaigns against Electrum users: malicious Electrum servers pushed fake 'update' messages through server error text (clients older than 3.3.3 displayed arbitrary rich text), and lookalike download sites served trojanised wallets. The second variant also removed RBF and confirmation prompts and redirected payments. Malwarebytes also reports a DDoS from 25,000+ IPs against Electrum servers in April 2019, and a 114.61 BTC cash-out on 2019-04-14. (third-party report)Well over 771 BTC (about $4M) per Malwarebytes. Its per-variant figures (218.15 BTC and 637.73 BTC) add up to more than that total.Electrum added a legitimate update notice through the same mechanism and, from 2019-03-15, disrupted clients older than 3.3 to force upgrades. Malwarebytes advises updating from the official site and treating unexpected warning or update messages with suspicion.source
2018-12-21Phishing via malicious Electrum servers: the attacker added many servers to the network, and connected wallets showed a fake error telling the user to install an 'update' from a malicious GitHub repository. The fake app asked for the 2FA code and moved the funds. Electrum posted a warning on 2018-12-26 (per Malwarebytes).More than $750,000 at the time of writing (SC Media, 2018-12-28)Electrum stopped rich-text rendering of server messages as a temporary fix; SC Media says the underlying issue needed wider changes to the server network. Users were told to download only from the official site.source

Check a link

Got a link, @handle or repo that claims to be Electrum? Paste it to see if it's on the official list.

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