Summary
go-ethereum vulnerable to DoS via malicious p2p message
Workarounds
No workarounds have been made public.
References
No more information is released at this time.
Credit
This issue was disclosed responsibly by DongHan Kim via the Ethereum bug bounty program. Thank you for your cooperation.
Impact
A vulnerable node can be made to consume very large amounts of memory when handling specially crafted p2p messages sent from an attacker node.
In order to carry out the attack, the attacker establishes a peer connections to the victim, and sends a malicious GetBlockHeadersRequest message with a count of 0, using the ETH protocol.
In descendants := chain.GetHeadersFrom(num+count-1, count-1), the value of count-1 is passed to the function GetHeadersFrom(number, count uint64) as parameter count. Due to integer overflow, UINT64_MAX value is then passed as the count argument to function GetHeadersFrom(number, count uint64). This allows an attacker to bypass maxHeadersServe and request all headers from the latest block back to the genesis block.
Crafted input forces the application to consume excessive CPU, memory, or other resources, degrading or denying service. Typical impact: denial of service.
CVE-2024-32972 has a CVSS score of 7.5 (High). The vector is network-reachable, no privileges required, and no user interaction. A CVSS score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether this affects your application depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable in your environment. A fixed version is available (1.13.15); upgrading removes the vulnerable code path.
Affected versions
Security releases
Kodem intelligence
Severity tells you how bad this could be in the worst case. It does not tell you whether you are exposed. Exploitability and impact are functions of runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A vulnerable package can sit in your dependency tree and never run.
Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter. Kodem's runtime-powered SCA identifies whether this CVE is reachable in your applications.
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The fix has been included in geth version 1.13.15 and onwards.
The vulnerability was patched in: https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/pull/29534
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is CVE-2024-32972? CVE-2024-32972 is a high-severity uncontrolled resource consumption vulnerability in github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum (go), affecting versions < 1.13.15. It is fixed in 1.13.15. Crafted input forces the application to consume excessive CPU, memory, or other resources, degrading or denying service.
- How severe is CVE-2024-32972? CVE-2024-32972 has a CVSS score of 7.5 (High). This score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether it represents real risk in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable.
- Which versions of github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum are affected by CVE-2024-32972? github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum (go) versions < 1.13.15 is affected.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2024-32972? Yes. CVE-2024-32972 is fixed in 1.13.15. Upgrade to this version or later.
- Is CVE-2024-32972 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2024-32972 is exploitable in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable. A CVSS score is a worst-case rating; it does not account for your specific deployment, configuration, or usage patterns. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to show which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so you can focus on the ones that represent real risk. Get a demo
- What actually determines whether CVE-2024-32972 is exploitable, and how bad it is? Exploitability and impact are not fixed properties of a CVE. They depend on runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A high CVSS score on a dependency that never runs is not the same as real risk. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter.
- How do I fix CVE-2024-32972? Upgrade
github.com/ethereum/go-ethereumto 1.13.15 or later.