Polkadot Frontier contains missing `check_inherent` for `note_min_gas_price_target` inflates gas price
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Network
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Attack requirements
- None
- Impact type
- —
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- None · Low · Low
- Fix status
- No fix listed
Attack profile from CVSS 4.0 · CNA. Fix status from CNA.
Summary
Polkadot Frontier is an Ethereum and EVM compatibility layer for Polkadot and Substrate. The extrinsic note_min_gas_price_target is an inherent extrinsic, meaning only the block producer can call it. To ensure correctness, the ProvideInherent trait should be implemented for each inherent, which includes the check_inherent call. This allows other nodes to verify if the input (in this case, the target value) is correct. However, prior to commit a754b3d, the check_inherent function has not been implemented for note_min_gas_price_target. This lets the block producer set the target value without verification. The target is then used to set the MinGasPrice, which has an upper and lower bound defined in the on_initialize hook. The block producer can set the target to the upper bound. Which also increases the upper and lower bounds for the next block. Over time, this could result in continuously raising the gas price, making contract execution too expensive and ineffective for users. An attacker could use this flaw to manipulate the gas price, potentially leading to significantly inflated transaction fees. Such manipulation could render contract execution prohibitively expensive for users, effectively resulting in a denial-of-service condition for the network. This is fixed in version a754b3d.
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3
- Exploitation
- None
- Automatable
- Yes
- Technical impact
- Partial
The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected versions | Fixed in | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| polkadot-evm | frontier | < a754b3d | — | No fix listed | CNA |
- frontier Vendorpolkadot-evm Affected < a754b3d Fixed in — No fix listed CNA
Remediation
No fixed version listed by the sources yet.
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2025-54427
- 2026-10-29 EPSS moved to the 50th–90th percentile
References
More polkadot-evm vulnerabilities
- TI-2025-34231 Polkadot Frontier contains silent failure in Curve25519 arithmetic precompiles with malformed points CVSS 4.0CRITICAL 9.9
- TI-2025-34234 Polkadot Frontier's constructing smart contract can bypass precompile address bounding CVSS 4.0MEDIUM 6.9
Sources
This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. Sources and licences