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mx-chain-go's relayed transactions always increment nonce

High severity GitHub Reviewed Published Jul 13, 2023 in multiversx/mx-chain-go • Updated Nov 4, 2023

Package

gomod github.com/multiversx/mx-chain-go (Go)

Affected versions

< 1.4.17

Patched versions

1.4.17

Description

Impact

When executing a relayed transaction, if the inner transaction failed, it would have increased the inner transaction's sender account nonce. This could have contributed to a limited DoS attack on a targeted account. The fix is a breaking change so a new flag RelayedNonceFixEnableEpoch was needed. This was a strict processing issue while validating blocks on a chain.

Patches

v1.4.17 and later versions contain the fix for this issue

Workarounds

there were no workarounds for this issue. The affected account could only wait for the DoS attack to finish as the attack was not free or to attempt to send transactions in a very fast manner so as to compete on the same nonce with the attacker.

References

For the future understanding of this issue, on v1.4.17 and onwards versions, we have this integration test that addresses the issue and tests the fix.
https://github.com/multiversx/mx-chain-go/blob/babdb144f1316ab6176bf3dbd7d4621120414d43/integrationTests/vm/txsFee/relayedMoveBalance_test.go#LL165C14-L165C14

References

@iulianpascalau iulianpascalau published to multiversx/mx-chain-go Jul 13, 2023
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Jul 13, 2023
Reviewed Jul 13, 2023
Published by the National Vulnerability Database Jul 13, 2023
Last updated Nov 4, 2023

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
High
Privileges required
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
Low
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:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:L/A:H

EPSS score

0.106%
(44th percentile)

Weaknesses

CVE ID

CVE-2023-34458

GHSA ID

GHSA-j494-7x2v-vvvp

Source code

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