CVE-2023-38701

Source
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-38701
Import Source
https://storage.googleapis.com/cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2023-38701.json
JSON Data
https://api.osv.dev/v1/vulns/CVE-2023-38701
Aliases
  • GHSA-6x9v-7x5r-w8w6
Published
2023-10-04T18:48:52.709Z
Modified
2025-12-04T23:59:31.662513Z
Severity
  • 9.1 (Critical) CVSS_V3 - CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H CVSS Calculator
Summary
Hydra's committed UTxOs at Commit validator and UTxOs at Initial validator can be spent arbitrarily by anyone
Details

Hydra is the layer-two scalability solution for Cardano. Users of the Hydra head protocol send the UTxOs they wish to commit into the Hydra head first to the commit validator, where they remain until they are either collected into the head validator or the protocol initialisation is aborted and the value in the committed UTxOs is returned to the users who committed them. Prior to version 0.12.0, the commit validator contains a flawed check when the ViaAbort redeemer is used, which allows any user to spend any UTxO which is at the validator arbitrarily, meaning an attacker can steal the funds that users are trying to commit into the head validator. The intended behavior is that the funds must be returned to the user which committed the funds and can only be performed by a participant of the head. The initial validator also is similarly affected as the same flawed check is performed for the ViaAbort redeemer. Due to this issue, an attacker can steal any funds that user's try to commit into a Hydra head. Also, an attacker can prevent any Hydra head from being successfully opened. It does not allow an attacker to take funds which have been successfully collected into and currently reside in the head validator. Version 0.12.0 contains a fix for this issue.

Database specific
{
    "cna_assigner": "GitHub_M",
    "osv_generated_from": "https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/tree/main/cves/2023/38xxx/CVE-2023-38701.json",
    "cwe_ids": [
        "CWE-20"
    ]
}
References

Affected packages

Git / github.com/input-output-hk/hydra

Affected ranges

Type
GIT
Repo
https://github.com/input-output-hk/hydra
Events
Introduced
0 Unknown introduced commit / All previous commits are affected
Fixed

Affected versions

0.*

0.1.0
0.10.0
0.11.0
0.2.0
0.3.0
0.4.0
0.5.0
0.6.0
0.7.0
0.8.0
0.8.1
0.9.0

plutus-cbor-1.*

plutus-cbor-1.0.0

plutus-merkle-tree-1.*

plutus-merkle-tree-1.0.0