GHSA-XC79-566C-J4QX

Workarounds

No workarounds have been made public.

Credit

This issue was disclosed responsibly by DongHan Kim via the Ethereum bug bounty program, the cooperation is appreciated.

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 Parallax 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.

GHSA-XC79-566C-J4QX 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 (0.1.4); upgrading removes the vulnerable code path.

Kodem intelligence

The fix has been included in the Parallax client version 0.1.4 and onwards.

The vulnerability was patched in: https://github.com/microstack-tech/parallax/commit/f759e9090aaf00a43c616d7cbd133c44bb1ed01e

1. What is GHSA-XC79-566C-J4QX? GHSA-XC79-566C-J4QX is a high-severity uncontrolled resource consumption vulnerability in github.com/microstack-tech/parallax (go), affecting versions < 0.1.4. It is fixed in 0.1.4. Crafted input forces the application to consume excessive CPU, memory, or other resources, degrading or denying service.
2. How severe is GHSA-XC79-566C-J4QX? GHSA-XC79-566C-J4QX 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.
3. Which versions of github.com/microstack-tech/parallax are affected by GHSA-XC79-566C-J4QX? github.com/microstack-tech/parallax (go) versions < 0.1.4 is affected.
4. Is there a fix for GHSA-XC79-566C-J4QX? Yes. GHSA-XC79-566C-J4QX is fixed in 0.1.4. Upgrade to this version or later.
5. Is GHSA-XC79-566C-J4QX exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether GHSA-XC79-566C-J4QX 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
6. What actually determines whether GHSA-XC79-566C-J4QX 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.
7. How do I fix GHSA-XC79-566C-J4QX? Upgrade github.com/microstack-tech/parallax to 0.1.4 or later.