Polkadot Frontier's constructing smart contract can bypass precompile address bounding
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Network
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Attack requirements
- None
- Impact type
- —
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- None · Low · None
- Fix status
- Fixed
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. There are various account address types in Frontier, e.g. precompiled contracts, smart contracts, and externally owned accounts. Some EVM mechanisms should be unreachable by certain types of accounts for safety. For precompiles to be callable by smart contracts they must be explicitly configured as CallableByContract. If this configuration is absent, then the precompile should be unreachable via smart contract accounts. In commits prior to 0822030, the underlying implementation of CallableByContract which returned the AddressType was incorrect. It considered the contract address running under CREATE or CREATE2 to be AddressType::EOA rather than correctly as AddressType::Contract. The issue only affects users who use custom precompile implementations that utilize AddressType::EOA and AddressType::Contract. It's not directly exploitable in any of the predefined precompiles in Frontier. This is fixed in version 0822030.
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 | before 0822030 | 0822030 | Patch available | CNA |
- frontier Vendorpolkadot-evm Affected before 0822030 Fixed in 0822030 Patch available CNA
Remediation
- Fix · CNA frontier (polkadot-evm) Fixed in 0822030
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2025-54429
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-2025-34232 Polkadot Frontier contains missing `check_inherent` for `note_min_gas_price_target` inflates gas price CVSS 4.0MEDIUM 6.9
Sources
This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. Sources and licences