Improper Verification of Cryptographic Signature Affecting github.com/tendermint/tendermint/light package, versions >=0.34.0 <0.34.9


Severity

Recommended
0.0
medium
0
10

CVSS assessment made by Snyk's Security Team. Learn more

Threat Intelligence

Exploit Maturity
Not Defined

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  • Snyk IDSNYK-GOLANG-GITHUBCOMTENDERMINTTENDERMINTLIGHT-2322191
  • published21 Dec 2021
  • disclosed20 Dec 2021
  • creditMaximilianDiez

Introduced: 20 Dec 2021

CVE NOT AVAILABLE CWE-347  (opens in a new tab)

How to fix?

Upgrade github.com/tendermint/tendermint/light to version 0.34.9 or higher.

Overview

github.com/tendermint/tendermint/light is a package that provides a light client implementation.

The concept of light clients was introduced in the Bitcoin white paper. It describes a watcher of distributed consensus process that only validates the consensus algorithm and not the state machine transactions within.

Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Improper Verification of Cryptographic Signature. The light client can accept a bad header from its primary witness and will not be able to form evidence of this deception, (even if all the secondary witnesses is correct). Because the light client is responsible for verifying cross-chain state for IBC, a successful attack can result in loss of funds.

Note: This attack cannot be successfully executed unless there are already ⅓+ Byzantine validators, and therefore outside of Tendermint’s security model.

CVSS Scores

version 3.1