CVE-2023-46132
HIGHCrosslinking transaction attack in hyperledger/fabric
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/hyperledger/fabric🐹github.com/hyperledger/fabricReal-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
Hyperledger Fabric is an open source permissioned distributed ledger framework. Combining two molecules to one another, called "cross-linking" results in a molecule with a chemical formula that is composed of all atoms of the original two molecules. In Fabric, one can take a block of transactions and cross-link the transactions in a way that alters the way the peers parse the transactions. If a first peer receives a block B and a second peer receives a block identical to B but with the transactions being cross-linked, the second peer will parse transactions in a different way and thus its world state will deviate from the first peer. Orderers or peers cannot detect that a block has its transactions cross-linked, because there is a vulnerability in the way Fabric hashes the transactions of blocks. It simply and naively concatenates them, which is insecure and lets an adversary craft a "cross-linked block" (block with cross-linked transactions) which alters the way peers process transactions. For example, it is possible to select a transaction and manipulate a peer to completely avoid processing it, without changing the computed hash of the block. Additional validations have been added in v2.2.14 and v2.5.5 to detect potential cross-linking issues before processing blocks. Users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/hyperledger/fabric | ≥ 1.0.0-alpha&&< 2.2.14 | 2.2.14 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/hyperledger/fabric | ≥ 2.3.0&&< 2.5.5 | 2.5.5 |
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/hyperledger/fabric. 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/hyperledger/fabric to 2.2.14 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-46132 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-2023-46132 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-2023-46132. 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-2023-46132 in your dependencies?
O3 detects CVE-2023-46132 across Go dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.