CVE-2024-32972 — go-ethereum
HIGHCVE-2024-32972 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum. A fix is available for github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum — see the affected versions and patch details below.
go-ethereum denial of service via malicious p2p message
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2024-32972.
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
github.com/ethereum/go-ethereumReal-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
Impact
A vulnerable node can be made to consume very large amounts of memory when handling specially crafted p2p messages sent from an attacker node.
In order to carry out the attack, the attacker establishes a peer connections to the victim, and sends a malicious GetBlockHeadersRequest message with a count of 0, using the ETH protocol.
In descendants := chain.GetHeadersFrom(num+count-1, count-1), the value of count-1 is passed to the function GetHeadersFrom(number, count uint64) as parameter count. Due to integer overflow, UINT64_MAX value is then passed as the count argument to function GetHeadersFrom(number, count uint64). This allows an attacker to bypass maxHeadersServe and request all headers from the latest block back to the genesis block.
Patches
The fix has been included in geth version 1.13.15 and onwards.
The vulnerability was patched in: https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/pull/29534
Workarounds
No workarounds have been made public.
References
No more information is released at this time.
Credit
This issue was disclosed responsibly by DongHan Kim via the Ethereum bug bounty program. Thank you for your cooperation.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum | all versions | 1.13.15go get github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum@v1.13.15 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum to 1.13.15 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2024-32972 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Constrain what reaches the vulnerable code: limit the size and shape of untrusted input, isolate the affected component in a sandboxed or least-privileged process, and enable the platform's memory-safety mitigations (ASLR, stack protector, hardened allocator) so an out-of-bounds access is more likely to fail closed than to be exploitable.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2024-32972 in your dependencies?
Find it across Go, including transitive dependencies.