CVE-2024-32481 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.3) CWE-681 vulnerability in vyper. A fix is available for vyper — see the affected versions and patch details below.
vyper's range(start, start + N) reverts for negative numbers
Exploitation Status
Proof-of-concept exploit code exists
- CISA’s SSVC triage found public proof-of-concept exploit code for this CVE, though no confirmed active exploitation.
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2024-32481.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
Real-World Exposure
vyperReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects PyPI packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Summary
When looping over a range of the form range(start, start + N), if start is negative, the execution will always revert.
Details
This issue is caused by an incorrect assertion inserted by the code generation of the range (stmt.parse_For_range()):
This assertion was introduced in https://github.com/vyperlang/vyper/commit/3de1415ee77a9244eb04bdb695e249d3ec9ed868 to fix https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-6r8q-pfpv-7cgj. The issue arises when start is signed, instead of using sle, le is used and start is interpreted as an unsigned integer for the comparison. If it is a negative number, its 255th bit is set to 1 and is hence interpreted as a very large unsigned integer making the assertion always fail.
PoC
@external
def foo():
x:int256 = min_value(int256)
# revert when it should not since we have the following assertion that fails:
# [assert, [le, min_value(int256), max_value(int256) + 1 - 10]],
for i in range(x, x + 10):
pass
Patches
patched in v0.4.0, specifically, https://github.com/vyperlang/vyper/pull/3679 disallows this form of range().
Impact
Any contract having a range(start, start + N) where start is a signed integer with the possibility for start to be negative is affected. If a call goes through the loop while supplying a negative start the execution will revert.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | vyper | ≥ 0.3.8&&< 0.4.0 | 0.4.0pip install --upgrade 'vyper==0.4.0' |
Affected Products
vypervyperlangDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for vyper, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update vyper to 0.4.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2024-32481 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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2024-32481 in your dependencies?
Find it across PyPI, including transitive dependencies.