CVE-2023-38701
Published: 04 October 2023
Summary
CVE-2023-38701 is a critical-severity Improper Input Validation (CWE-20) vulnerability in Iohk Hydra. Its CVSS base score is 9.1 (Critical).
Operationally, ranked at the 24.4th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2023-42478
Vulnerability details
Hydra is the layer-two scalability solution for Cardano. Users of the Hydra head protocol send the UTxOs they wish to commit into the Hydra head first to the `commit` validator, where they remain until they are either collected into the…
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`head` validator or the protocol initialisation is aborted and the value in the committed UTxOs is returned to the users who committed them. Prior to version 0.12.0, the `commit` validator contains a flawed check when the `ViaAbort` redeemer is used, which allows any user to spend any UTxO which is at the validator arbitrarily, meaning an attacker can steal the funds that users are trying to commit into the head validator. The intended behavior is that the funds must be returned to the user which committed the funds and can only be performed by a participant of the head. The `initial` validator also is similarly affected as the same flawed check is performed for the `ViaAbort` redeemer. Due to this issue, an attacker can steal any funds that user's try to commit into a Hydra head. Also, an attacker can prevent any Hydra head from being successfully opened. It does not allow an attacker to take funds which have been successfully collected into and currently reside in the `head` validator. Version 0.12.0 contains a fix for this issue.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
No named actor attribution yet. ATT&CK technique mapping in progress for this CVE.
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Likely Mitigating Controls AI
Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.
Security testing and developer training directly verify and enforce proper input validation, reducing exploitability of injection and malformed-data weaknesses.
Security testing and evaluation at multiple SDLC stages directly detects missing or flawed input validation, with the required remediation process ensuring fixes are applied.
Directly implements checks on information inputs to reject invalid data before processing.
Spam protection mechanisms perform filtering and detection on inbound/outbound messages, directly compensating for missing or weak input validation of unsolicited content.