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go-ethereum vulnerable to DoS via malicious p2p message

High severity GitHub Reviewed Published May 6, 2024 in ethereum/go-ethereum • Updated Aug 16, 2024

Package

gomod github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum (Go)

Affected versions

< 1.13.15

Patched versions

1.13.15

Description

Impact

A vulnerable node can be made to consume very large amounts of memory when handling specially crafted p2p messages sent from an attacker node.

In order to carry out the attack, the attacker establishes a peer connections to the victim, and sends a malicious GetBlockHeadersRequest message with a count of 0, using the ETH protocol.

In descendants := chain.GetHeadersFrom(num+count-1, count-1), the value of count-1 is passed to the function GetHeadersFrom(number, count uint64) as parameter count. Due to integer overflow, UINT64_MAX value is then passed as the count argument to function GetHeadersFrom(number, count uint64). This allows an attacker to bypass maxHeadersServe and request all headers from the latest block back to the genesis block.

Patches

The fix has been included in geth version 1.13.15 and onwards.

The vulnerability was patched in: ethereum/go-ethereum#29534

Workarounds

No workarounds have been made public.

References

No more information is released at this time.

Credit

This issue was disclosed responsibly by DongHan Kim via the Ethereum bug bounty program. Thank you for your cooperation.

References

@holiman holiman published to ethereum/go-ethereum May 6, 2024
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database May 6, 2024
Reviewed May 6, 2024
Published by the National Vulnerability Database May 6, 2024
Last updated Aug 16, 2024

Severity

High

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

EPSS score

0.043%
(10th percentile)

Weaknesses

CVE ID

CVE-2024-32972

GHSA ID

GHSA-4xc9-8hmq-j652

Source code

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