GHSA-4456-w38r-m53x — evm
CRITICALGHSA-4456-w38r-m53x is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.1) CWE-196 vulnerability in org.hyperledger.besu:evm. A fix is available for org.hyperledger.besu:evm — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Besu VM vulnerable to gas allocation error in CALL operations
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- 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 GHSA-4456-w38r-m53x.
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.
How urgent is this, really
GHSA-4456-w38r-m53x plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 378,567 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
org.hyperledger.besu:evmReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Maven packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Impact
An error in 32 bit signed and unsigned types in the calculation of available gas in the CALL operations (including DELEGATECALL) results in incorrect gas being passed into called contracts and incorrect gas being returned after call execution. Where the amount of gas makes a difference in the success or failure, or if the gas is a negative 64 bit value, the execution will result in a different state root than expected, resulting in a consensus failure in networks with multiple EVM implementations.
In networks with a single EVM implementation this can be used to execute with significantly more gas than then transaction requested, possibly exceeding gas limitations.
Patches
Version 22.7.1 contains a fix, ensuring that excess gas will not be allocated to inner transaction calls and correcting the excess gas errors.
Workarounds
Reverting to version 22.1.3 or earlier will prevent incorrect execution. However many ethereum mainnet networks require changes in more recent versions of Besu and should not use older versions of besu and should instead use the patched version.
Ethereum Classic and other networks not depending on a Proof of Stake transition should function fine with version 22.1.3 or earlier.
For more information
Issue was found by Martin Holst Swende using goevmlab, it is believed that no production networks have transactions that would trigger this failure.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | org.hyperledger.besu:evm | ≥ 22.4.0-RC1&&< 22.7.1 | 22.7.1org.hyperledger.besu:evm:22.7.1 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for org.hyperledger.besu:evm, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update org.hyperledger.besu:evm to 22.7.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-4456-w38r-m53x 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 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like GHSA-4456-w38r-m53x can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-4456-w38r-m53x. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-4456-w38r-m53x in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-4456-w38r-m53x across Maven dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.