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Tendermint light client verification not taking into account chain ID

Moderate severity GitHub Reviewed Published Dec 14, 2022 in informalsystems/tendermint-rs • Updated Jan 31, 2023

Package

cargo tendermint-light-client (Rust)

Affected versions

<= 0.27.0

Patched versions

0.28.0
cargo tendermint-light-client-js (Rust)
<= 0.27.0
0.28.0
cargo tendermint-light-client-verifier (Rust)
<= 0.27.0
0.28.0

Description

Impact

Anyone using the tendermint-light-client and related packages to perform light client verification (e.g. IBC-rs, Hermes).

At present, the light client does not check that the chain IDs of the trusted and untrusted headers match, resulting in a possible attack vector where someone who finds a header from an untrusted chain that satisfies all other verification conditions (e.g. enough overlapping validator signatures) could fool a light client.

The attack vector is currently theoretical, and no proof-of-concept exists yet to exploit it on live networks.

Patches

Users of the light client-related crates can currently upgrade to v0.28.0.

Workarounds

None

References

References

@thanethomson thanethomson published to informalsystems/tendermint-rs Dec 14, 2022
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Dec 14, 2022
Reviewed Dec 14, 2022
Published by the National Vulnerability Database Dec 15, 2022
Last updated Jan 31, 2023

Severity

Moderate

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
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
Low
Availability
None

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:N/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N

EPSS score

0.072%
(33rd percentile)

Weaknesses

CVE ID

CVE-2022-23507

GHSA ID

GHSA-xqqc-c5gw-c5r5

Source code

Credits

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