Deserialization of Untrusted Data Affecting github.com/cosmos/ibc-go/v8/modules/core/04-channel/keeper package, versions <8.7.0

Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Deserialization of Untrusted Data due to inconsistencies in the deserialization process of acknowledgments, leading to non-deterministic behavior that can halt a blockchain network. Note: This is only exploitable if the attacker has the ability to open an IBC channel.

This vulnerability can be mitigated by permissioning Channel Opening.

Serialization is a process of converting an object into a sequence of bytes which can be persisted to a disk or database or can be sent through streams. The reverse process of creating object from sequence of bytes is called deserialization. Serialization is commonly used for communication (sharing objects between multiple hosts) and persistence (store the object state in a file or a database). It is an integral part of popular protocols like Remote Method Invocation (RMI), Java Management Extension (JMX), Java Messaging System (JMS), Action Message Format (AMF), Java Server Faces (JSF) ViewState, etc.

Deserialization of untrusted data (CWE-502) is when the application deserializes untrusted data without sufficiently verifying that the resulting data will be valid, thus allowing the attacker to control the state or the flow of the execution.

• GitHub Commit
• GitHub Release
• GitHub Release