Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain
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AccessOpen inbound P2P connections to zebrad
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DeliveryCraft oversized getblocks/getheaders locator
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ExploitSend 65,535-hash vectors from Sybil peers
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ExecutionTrigger per-hash chain lookups on blocking pool
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ImpactExhaust blocking-pool threads, degrade validation/RPC/mempool
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A06:2025 - Insecure Design
ASVS 5.0
V2 - Validation and Business Logic Resource allocation 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. |
| Exploitation Conditions | Exploitable only against a zebrad node (<=4.4.1 / before 4.5.0) that accepts inbound P2P connections; the attacker sends getblocks or getheaders messages whose block-locator vector exceeds the protocol's 101-entry limit (up to 65,535 hashes via the generic MAX_PROTOCOL_MESSAGE_LEN-derived bound). Meaningful impact additionally requires significant attacker bandwidth (~2 MiB per request) and multiple sustained/Sybil peers. Limiting factors that reduce real-world risk: existing backpressure mechanisms (load shedding, sequential per-peer message processing, connection limits), and that nodes not accepting inbound connections are unaffected; impact is performance degradation, not full node crash. |
| Impact | This is a genuine but modest-priority issue best characterized as a resource-exhaustion/CPU-amplification flaw rather than a critical threat. The CVSS 4.0 vector (AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N) scores 6.3 (Medium): network-reachable and unauthenticated, but with HIGH attack complexity and a present Attack Requirement (AT:P), and only LOW availability impact (VA:L) with no confidentiality or integrity impact. These signals align well with the vendor advisory, which explicitly states real-world exploitability is limited - degradation (not outage) requires ~2 MiB per request, sustained load, and multiple Sybil peers, and is further bounded by existing backpressure (load shedding, sequential per-peer processing, connection limits). There is no EPSS score, KEV listing, or public exploit provided in the input, so the status is no public exploit identified at time of analysis and no confirmed exploitation. The AC:H/AT:P metrics are consistent with the description's emphasis on attacker bandwidth and Sybil requirements, so no signals conflict. Net: a legitimately fixable node-stability bug for Zcash/Zebra operators, but not an urgent, widely-weaponizable vulnerability. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | An attacker establishes multiple inbound P2P (Sybil) connections to a public-facing zebrad node (<=4.4.1) and sends a stream of maximally-sized getblocks/getheaders messages, each carrying up to 65,535 locator hashes instead of the ~101 the protocol expects. Each message occupies a tokio blocking-pool thread for roughly 10-65ms performing per-hash chain lookups, and sustained parallel requests degrade state-read performance for block validation, RPC, and mempool. No public exploit code is identified in the provided data; exploitation requires significant attacker bandwidth. |
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Alert meAnalysisAIv1 – Oct 02, 2026
Resource exhaustion in Zcash Zebra (zebrad) 4.4.1 and earlier allows unauthenticated remote P2P peers to tie up blocking-pool threads by sending getblocks or getheaders messages with block-locator vectors far larger than the protocol's 101-entry limit, degrading block validation, RPC, and mempool lookups. The root cause is an uncapped locator length (accepting up to 65,535 hashes derived from the generic MAX_PROTOCOL_MESSAGE_LEN allocation bound) with each hash triggering a chain lookup on a blocking-pool thread. Practical impact is bounded: it requires roughly 2 MiB of attacker bandwidth per request and multiple sustained/Sybil peers, existing backpressure (load shedding, per-peer sequential processing, connection limits) constrains the effect, nodes that do not accept inbound connections are unaffected, and there is no public exploit identified at time of analysis; the independent assessment rates this a modest-priority availability weakness, not a node crash. Vendor patches are available and the fix has been merged upstream.
RemediationAI
Upgrade zebrad to 4.5.0 or later (and, for library consumers, zebra-chain to 8.0.0 or later), which caps block::Hash::max_allocation() at MAX_BLOCK_LOCATOR_LENGTH = 101 to match zcashd's MAX_LOCATOR_SZ, causing the deserializer to reject oversized locators before any allocation or iteration occurs; the upstream fix is in pull request https://github.com/ZcashFoundation/zebra/pull/10570 (commit 8981a1b95d4807cad99e5bb3b94fc8bc723ac033) and the advisory is at https://github.com/ZcashFoundation/zebra/security/advisories/GHSA-443g-gwgp-49x4. Because this is an availability-only, bandwidth-and-Sybil-gated issue, no specific workaround is required per the vendor, as existing backpressure mechanisms (load shedding, sequential per-peer message processing, and configuration connection limits) already bound the practical impact; however, operators who cannot patch immediately can reduce exposure by not accepting inbound P2P connections (removing or restricting the listen address so the node dials out only), though the trade-off is that the node stops serving blocks/transactions to the network, and by lowering the maximum inbound peer connection count or allowing only trusted peers, which reduces the number of simultaneous Sybil sources at the cost of reduced peer diversity and resilience. Monitor blocking-pool saturation and RPC latency as detection signals for attempted abuse until patched.
Affected VersionsENISA
Affected Packages
Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)
Affects your stack
Affects 3 packages in cargo, euvd
Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.
Technical ContextAI · show details
Zebra is the Zcash Foundation's Rust implementation of a Zcash full node; its peer-to-peer wire protocol is modeled on Bitcoin's, where getblocks/getheaders requests include a block locator vector used to find a chain intersection. The vulnerability is CWE-770 (Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling) in the read_getblocks and read_getheaders codec paths: instead of validating the CompactSize vector count against the protocol-specification limit (101 entries, matching zcashd's MAX_LOCATOR_SZ), the deserializer relied on block::Hash::max_allocation(), which permits (MAX_PROTOCOL_MESSAGE_LEN - 1) / 32 = 65,535 hashes. The read_headers path already implemented the correct pattern with a pre-deserialization check against MAX_HEADERS_PER_MESSAGE = 160, so the omission was specific to the two locator paths. Each accepted locator hash drives a per-hash chain lookup (HashMap::contains_key plus RocksDB::contains_hash) inside find_chain_intersection, executing on a tokio blocking-pool thread; a single maximally-sized message occupies such a thread for roughly 10-65 ms, and sustained concurrent submissions from many peers exhaust the blocking pool and slow state reads for block validation, RPC, and mempool. A legitimate locator is logarithmic in chain length (~30 hashes for the ~3M-block Zcash chain) and Zebra's own send-side cap is MAX_FIND_BLOCK_HASHES_RESULTS = 500, so oversized vectors are anomalous and easily distinguishable. Assessment-wise this is an availability-only flaw (C:N/I:N/A:L per the assessed CVSS:3.1 vector AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N), with the high attack-complexity rating reflecting the bandwidth and multi-peer prerequisites.
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Severity by source
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Remote unauthenticated P2P (AV:N/PR:N), but AC:H because meaningful impact needs high bandwidth and multiple Sybil peers against backpressure; only partial availability degradation, no C/I impact.
Primary rating from Vendor (VulnCheck).
CVSS VectorVendor: VulnCheck
Lifecycle Timeline
1DescriptionCVE.org
Zebra before 4.5.0 contains an uncontrolled resource consumption vulnerability that allows remote P2P peers to exhaust blocking-pool threads by sending oversized block locator vectors. Attackers can send getblocks or getheaders messages with up to 65,535 locator hashes, triggering per-hash chain lookups that degrade block validation, RPC, and mempool performance.
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.
Remote denial-of-service in Zebra (Zcash node implementation) versions prior to 4.4.0 allows unauthenticated attackers t
Motorola FX9500 devices allow remote attackers to conduct absolute path traversal attacks, as demonstrated by PL/SQL Ser
An issue was discovered on Zebra (formerly Motorola Solutions) Fixed RFID Reader FX9500 devices. Rated critical severity
Remote, unauthenticated denial of service in Zcash Foundation's Zebra full node: versions 6.4.0 through 6.4.1 abort when
Unauthenticated denial of service in Zebra (Zcash Foundation's full node implementation) before 6.0.0 allows remote peer
Remote unauthenticated attackers can cause a consensus divergence in Zcash Zebra nodes (zebrad 4.5.0 and zebra-script 7.
Zcash Foundation's Zebra full node (zebrad) before 6.2.1 can be stalled in block verification by any unauthenticated pee
Block-sync denial of service in Zebra (zebrad), the Rust implementation of a Zcash full node, affects all versions befor
Consensus divergence in Zebra Zcash nodes before 4.4.0 allows unauthenticated remote attackers to craft V5 transparent t
Zcash Zebra nodes running zebrad 4.4.0 or zebra-script 6.0.0 incorrectly accept V5 transparent transactions in which a S
Denial of service in the Zcash Foundation's Zebra full node before 6.1.0 lets remote unauthenticated peers stall node sy
Denial of service in the Zcash Foundation's Zebra full node implementation before 6.1.0 allows an unauthenticated remote
EUVD-2026-91446
GHSA-4m38-rccq-j8gv
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
Vulnrichment
Exploit-DB