GHSA-MW3Q-R9WH-H2FF

Vulnerability from github – Published: 2026-05-21 19:50 – Updated: 2026-05-21 19:50
VLAI
Summary
nimiq-primitives: Panic DoS in trie chunk processing via ROOT-keyed item
Details

Impact

A remote, unauthenticated denial-of-service vulnerability in MerkleRadixTrie::put_chunk allows any state-sync peer to crash any node performing state synchronization (freshly joining nodes and recovering nodes).

A malicious peer can respond to a RequestChunk with a ResponseChunk::Chunk whose first TrieItem.key is the empty (ROOT) key. The chunk passes sorting, range, and Merkle-proof validation, but when put_raw tries to store a value at the root node, it calls TrieNode::put_value(...).unwrap(), which returns Err(RootCantHaveValue) and panics, aborting the node process. The panic fires on the first malicious chunk the victim commits; no rate limit or authentication gate caps the attack.

Impacted: any node running state sync against untrusted peers — this includes fresh nodes performing initial download and existing nodes recovering from data loss. Honest nodes never construct ROOT-keyed items, so non-syncing operation is unaffected.

Patches

See PR.

Workarounds

There is no safe in-process workaround: any peer serving state-sync data can trigger the crash and the code path is not guarded by a feature flag.

Resources

  • Fix commit: (link to the merged PR commit, once merged)
  • Affected code: primitives/trie/src/trie.rs — put_chunk (around line 819) and put_raw (around line 351)
Severity
7.5 (High)
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Show details on source website
To clipboard 

{
  "affected": [
    {
      "package": {
        "ecosystem": "crates.io",
        "name": "nimiq-primitives"
      },
      "ranges": [
        {
          "events": [
            {
              "introduced": "0"
            },
            {
              "fixed": "1.5.0"
            }
          ],
          "type": "ECOSYSTEM"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "aliases": [
    "CVE-2026-46545"
  ],
  "database_specific": {
    "cwe_ids": [
      "CWE-248"
    ],
    "github_reviewed": true,
    "github_reviewed_at": "2026-05-21T19:50:31Z",
    "nvd_published_at": null,
    "severity": "HIGH"
  },
  "details": "### Impact\n\nA remote, unauthenticated denial-of-service vulnerability in `MerkleRadixTrie::put_chunk` allows any state-sync peer to crash any node performing state synchronization (freshly joining nodes and recovering nodes).\n\nA malicious peer can respond to a `RequestChunk` with a `ResponseChunk::Chunk` whose first `TrieItem.key` is the empty (ROOT) key. The chunk passes sorting, range, and Merkle-proof validation, but when `put_raw` tries to store a value at the root node, it calls `TrieNode::put_value(...).unwrap()`, which returns `Err(RootCantHaveValue)` and panics, aborting the node process. The panic fires on the first malicious chunk the victim commits; no rate limit or authentication gate caps the attack.\n\nImpacted: any node running state sync against untrusted peers \u2014 this includes fresh nodes performing initial download and existing nodes recovering from data loss. Honest nodes never construct ROOT-keyed items, so non-syncing operation is unaffected.\n\n### Patches\n\nSee [PR](https://github.com/nimiq/core-rs-albatross/pull/3762).\n\n### Workarounds\n\nThere is no safe in-process workaround: any peer serving state-sync data can trigger the crash and the code path is not guarded by a feature flag.\n\n### Resources\n\n- Fix commit: (link to the merged PR commit, once merged)\n- Affected code: [`primitives/trie/src/trie.rs`](https://github.com/nimiq/core-rs-albatross/blob/albatross/primitives/trie/src/trie.rs) \u2014 `put_chunk` (around line 819) and `put_raw` (around line 351)",
  "id": "GHSA-mw3q-r9wh-h2ff",
  "modified": "2026-05-21T19:50:31Z",
  "published": "2026-05-21T19:50:31Z",
  "references": [
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/nimiq/core-rs-albatross/security/advisories/GHSA-mw3q-r9wh-h2ff"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/nimiq/core-rs-albatross/pull/3762"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/nimiq/core-rs-albatross/commit/0fb8766adea91e038af00e635a6eb92756e50172"
    },
    {
      "type": "PACKAGE",
      "url": "https://github.com/nimiq/core-rs-albatross"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/nimiq/core-rs-albatross/releases/tag/v1.5.0"
    }
  ],
  "schema_version": "1.4.0",
  "severity": [
    {
      "score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H",
      "type": "CVSS_V3"
    }
  ],
  "summary": "nimiq-primitives: Panic DoS in trie chunk processing via ROOT-keyed item"
}


Log in or create an account to share your comment.




Tags
Taxonomy of the tags.





Forecast uses a logistic model when the trend is rising, or an exponential decay model when the trend is falling. Fitted via linearized least squares.

Sightings

Author Source Type Date Other

Nomenclature

  • Seen: The vulnerability was mentioned, discussed, or observed by the user.
  • Confirmed: The vulnerability has been validated from an analyst's perspective.
  • Published Proof of Concept: A public proof of concept is available for this vulnerability.
  • Exploited: The vulnerability was observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
  • Patched: The vulnerability was observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
  • Not exploited: The vulnerability was not observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
  • Not confirmed: The user expressed doubt about the validity of the vulnerability.
  • Not patched: The vulnerability was not observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.


Detection rules are retrieved from Rulezet.