Besu
CVE-2021-21369
MEDIUM
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A06:2025 - Insecure Design
ASVS 5.0
V2 - Validation and Business Logic Resource consumption limits
MITRE ATT&CK
1 technique across 1 tactic: Impact The technique list with ATT&CK links and the kill-chain view is part of the Basic plan and up. |
| Impact | CVSS score of 6.5 (MEDIUM). Attack characteristics: network attack vector, low complexity, low privileges required, no user interaction not required. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | A remote attacker could cause denial of service by exhausting system resources by sending crafted requests to the affected application. |
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Alert meAnalysisAI
Hyperledger Besu is an open-source, MainNet compatible, Ethereum client written in Java. Rated medium severity (CVSS 6.5), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, low attack complexity. This Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability could allow attackers to cause denial of service by exhausting system resources.
RemediationAI
A vendor patch is available. Apply the latest security update as soon as possible. Implement rate limiting, set resource quotas, validate input sizes, use timeouts.
Affects your stack
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Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.
Technical ContextAI · show details
This vulnerability is classified as Uncontrolled Resource Consumption (CWE-400), which allows attackers to cause denial of service by exhausting system resources. Hyperledger Besu is an open-source, MainNet compatible, Ethereum client written in Java. In Besu before version 1.5.1 there is a denial-of-service vulnerability involving the HTTP JSON-RPC API service. If username and password authentication is enabled for the HTTP JSON-RPC API service, then prior to making any requests to an API endpoint the requestor must use the login endpoint to obtain a JSON web token (JWT) using their credentials. A single user can readily overload the login endpoint with invalid requests (incorrect password). As the supplied password is checked for validity on the main vertx event loop and takes a relatively long time this can cause the processing of other valid requests to fail. A valid username is required for this vulnerability to be exposed. This has been fixed in version 1.5.1. Affected products include: Linuxfoundation Besu. Version information: version 1.5.1.
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- Exploit and PoC references, threat intelligence from 22 sources
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Severity by source
AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Primary rating from NVD · only source for this CVE.
CVSS VectorNVD
DescriptionNVD
Hyperledger Besu is an open-source, MainNet compatible, Ethereum client written in Java. In Besu before version 1.5.1 there is a denial-of-service vulnerability involving the HTTP JSON-RPC API service. If username and password authentication is enabled for the HTTP JSON-RPC API service, then prior to making any requests to an API endpoint the requestor must use the login endpoint to obtain a JSON web token (JWT) using their credentials. A single user can readily overload the login endpoint with invalid requests (incorrect password). As the supplied password is checked for validity on the main vertx event loop and takes a relatively long time this can cause the processing of other valid requests to fail. A valid username is required for this vulnerability to be exposed. This has been fixed in version 1.5.1.
Threat Intelligence Overview
How this decision was reached
The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
Denial of Service attacks render applications or systems unavailable by overwhelming resources or triggering failure conditions.
Affected Products (CPE)NVD
Besu is a Java-based Ethereum client. Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.1), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no
Besu is an Ethereum client written in Java. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.5), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable,
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
GitHub
Exploit-DB