CVE-2023-46132: Crosslinking transaction attack in hyperledger/fabric

DescriptionCVE.org

Hyperledger Fabric is an open source permissioned distributed ledger framework. Combining two molecules to one another, called "cross-linking" results in a molecule with a chemical formula that is composed of all atoms of the original two molecules. In Fabric, one can take a block of transactions and cross-link the transactions in a way that alters the way the peers parse the transactions. If a first peer receives a block B and a second peer receives a block identical to B but with the transactions being cross-linked, the second peer will parse transactions in a different way and thus its world state will deviate from the first peer. Orderers or peers cannot detect that a block has its transactions cross-linked, because there is a vulnerability in the way Fabric hashes the transactions of blocks. It simply and naively concatenates them, which is insecure and lets an adversary craft a "cross-linked block" (block with cross-linked transactions) which alters the way peers process transactions. For example, it is possible to select a transaction and manipulate a peer to completely avoid processing it, without changing the computed hash of the block. Additional validations have been added in v2.2.14 and v2.5.5 to detect potential cross-linking issues before processing blocks. Users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.

• hyperledger · fabric>= 1.0.0, < 2.2.14; >= 2.3.0, < 2.5.5

Exploitation

Unlikely (under 1%). EPSS under 1%, or no score yet.

CISA KEV

Not listed

Public check

No public nuclei template

Weakness

Race Condition · Race Conditions

Vendor

hyperledger

Published

November 2023

Band

Unlikely (under 1%), November 2023

Bounty reports

1 disclosed on HackerOne

• NVD entrynvd.nist.gov
• CVE recordcve.org
• Weakness CWE-362cwe.mitre.org
• github.com/hyperledger/fabric/security/advisories/GHSA-v9w2-543fgithub.com