Cyber Resilience

CVE-2023-28431

Parity Frontier ≤ 2023-03-15

Published
22 March 2023
Modified
21 November 2024
Patch / advisory
View advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 7.5
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0087 56th percentile
Risk Priority 59 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2023-28431 is a high-severity Incorrect Calculation (CWE-682) vulnerability in Parity Frontier. Its CVSS base score is 7.5 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked in the top 44% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

Frontier is an Ethereum compatibility layer for Substrate. Frontier's `modexp` precompile uses `num-bigint` crate under the hood. In the implementation prior to pull request 1017, the cases for modulus being even and modulus being odd are treated separately. Odd modulus…

more

uses the fast Montgomery multiplication, and even modulus uses the slow plain power algorithm. This gas cost discrepancy was not accounted for in the `modexp` precompile, leading to possible denial of service attacks. No fixes for `num-bigint` are currently available, and thus this issue is fixed in the short term by raising the gas costs for even modulus, and in the long term fixing it in `num-bigint` or switching to another modexp implementation. The short-term fix for Frontier is deployed at pull request 1017. There are no known workarounds aside from applying the fix.

CWE(s)
CWE-682

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Privilege Escalation
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.
attack.mitre.org →
T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access
Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.
attack.mitre.org →
T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution Execution
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in client applications to execute code.
attack.mitre.org →
T1210 Exploitation of Remote Services Lateral Movement
Adversaries may exploit remote services to gain unauthorized access to internal systems once inside of a network.
attack.mitre.org →
T1212 Exploitation for Credential Access Credential Access
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to collect credentials.
attack.mitre.org →
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2023-45130Same product: Parity Frontier
CVE-2026-24783Shared CWE-682
CVE-2024-42231Shared CWE-682
CVE-2026-44498Shared CWE-682
CVE-2024-25883Shared CWE-682
CVE-2025-4435Shared CWE-682
CVE-2023-24532Shared CWE-682
CVE-2023-35642Shared CWE-682
CVE-2023-42460Shared CWE-682
CVE-2024-45056Shared CWE-682

Affected Assets

parity
frontier
≤ 2023-03-15

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

—

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

—

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

—

Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V15.2.2

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices directly prevent incorrect calculations via reviews, testing, and verification in security-critical code.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

A.8.29 Security testing in development and acceptance mostly match
finds

Security testing in development and acceptance can detect calculation flaws before deployment.

A.8.25 Secure development life cycle partial match
prevents

Secure development lifecycle mandates verification steps that catch incorrect calculations before they reach production.

A.8.26 Application security requirements partial match
prevents

Application security requirements can explicitly call for numeric accuracy and bounds checking.

A.8.27 Secure system architecture and engineering principles partial match
degrades

Secure architecture principles include input validation and safe arithmetic design that reduce calculation errors.

A.8.28 Secure coding partial match
prevents

Secure coding standards directly prohibit unsafe arithmetic and require defensive checks against incorrect results.

References