CyberRota Analysis
AI-GeneratedThe vulnerability affects nodes running versions prior to 1.6.0 of the Nimiq Proof-of-Stake protocol, allowing a malicious state-sync peer to crash the node by sending a specially crafted TrieChunk. This exploitation does not require a valid cryptographic proof, as it triggers an out-of-bounds panic that causes the node to restart and resynchronize. Users operating affected versions should prioritize upgrading to version 1.6.0 to mitigate this risk.
Public Exploit Signal
A public exploit, PoC, GitHub repository or Metasploit reference was detected for this CVE.
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Original NVD Description
Nimiq is a Rust implementation of the Nimiq Proof-of-Stake protocol based on the Albatross consensus algorithm. Prior to 1.6.0, a malicious state-sync peer can crash a syncing node by sending a crafted TrieChunk whose proof contains a TrieNodeChild suffix that is individually valid but exceeds the 63-byte KeyNibbles backing array when combined with the parent key. KeyNibbles::Add in primitives/src/key_nibbles.rs performs the combined slice operation without checking the total length, and the input reaches put_chunk, TrieNodeChild::key, and TrieNodeChild::is_stump before proof.verify, so the attacker does not need a valid cryptographic proof. Exploitation requires the attacker to be selected as the victim's sync peer during state sync. The resulting out-of-bounds panic is transient because the node restarts and resynchronizes. This issue is fixed in version 1.6.0.