CVE-2022-35936
HIGHEthermint DoS through Unintended Contract Selfdestruct
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
Blast Radius
github.com/evmos/ethermint🐹github.com/evmos/evmos🐹github.com/crypto-org-chain/cronos🐹github.com/Kava-Labs/kavaReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Ethermint is an Ethereum library. In Ethermint running versions before v0.17.2, the contract selfdestruct invocation permanently removes the corresponding bytecode from the internal database storage. However, due to a bug in the DeleteAccountfunction, all contracts that used the identical bytecode (i.e shared the same CodeHash) will also stop working once one contract invokes selfdestruct, even though the other contracts did not invoke the selfdestruct OPCODE. This vulnerability has been patched in Ethermint version v0.18.0. The patch has state machine-breaking changes for applications using Ethermint, so a coordinated upgrade procedure is required. A workaround is available. If a contract is subject to DoS due to this issue, the user can redeploy the same contract, i.e. with identical bytecode, so that the original contract's code is recovered. The new contract deployment restores the bytecode hash -> bytecode entry in the internal state.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/evmos/ethermint | all versions | 0.18.0 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/evmos/evmos | all versions | 7.0.0 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/crypto-org-chain/cronos | all versions | 0.7.1-rc2 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/Kava-Labs/kava | all versions | 0.18.0 |
Research use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/evmos/ethermint. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update github.com/evmos/ethermint to 0.18.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2022-35936 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 pinpoints whether CVE-2022-35936 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to CVE-2022-35936. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2022-35936 in your dependencies?
O3 detects CVE-2022-35936 across Go dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.