Nimiq: Remote crash via off-by-one signer bounds check in proposal buffer
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Network
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Impact type
- Denial of service
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- None · None · High
- Fix status
- Fixed
Attack profile from CVSS 3.1 · CNA. Fix status from CNA. Impact type from CWE-125 and the CVSS impact.
Summary
nimiq/core-rs-albatross is a Rust implementation of the Nimiq Proof-of-Stake protocol based on the Albatross consensus algorithm. Prior to version 1.3.0, an untrusted peer could crash a validator by publishing a signed tendermint proposal message where signer == validators.num_validators(). ProposalSender::send uses > instead of >= for the signer bounds check, so the equality case passes and reaches validators.get_validator_by_slot_band(signer), which panics with an out-of-bounds index before any signature verification runs. This issue has been fixed in version 1.3.0.
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
Remediation
- Fix · CNA core-rs-albatross (nimiq) Fixed in 1.3.0
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-32605
- 2026-10-25 Priority changed: MEDIUM → LOW
References
Patch 3
More Nimiq Proof-of-stake vulnerabilities
- TI-2026-26389 nimiq-account: Vesting insufficient funds error can panic CVSS 3.1HIGH 8.2
- TI-2026-25867 nimiq-block has skip block quorum bypass via out-of-range BitSet indices & u16 truncation CVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.6
- TI-2026-27598 nimiq/core-rs-albatross: Panic in history index request handlers when a full node runs without the history index CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.5
- TI-2026-26390 nimiq-primitives: Node crash due to missing interlink validation in election macro block proposals CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.5
- TI-2026-26388 network-libp2p: Peer can crash the node by opening discovery protocol substream twice CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.5
- TI-2026-25612 nimiq/core-rs-albatross: Discovery handshake limit could underflow and later provoke a deterministic overflow panic CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.5
Sources
This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. Sources and licences