How severe is GHSA-qfc5-6r3j-jj22?

No CVSS score has been assigned to GHSA-qfc5-6r3j-jj22 yet. Review the advisory details and affected package list to assess your exposure.

Which packages are affected by GHSA-qfc5-6r3j-jj22?

GHSA-qfc5-6r3j-jj22 affects the following packages: github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk (Go). Ecosystems affected: Go.

How do I fix GHSA-qfc5-6r3j-jj22?

No patched version of github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk has shipped for GHSA-qfc5-6r3j-jj22 yet. Where your build allows, override or pin the dependency away from the vulnerable range, and apply any maintainer-recommended mitigation.

How do I detect GHSA-qfc5-6r3j-jj22 in my Go dependencies?

Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk. 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.

How do I mitigate GHSA-qfc5-6r3j-jj22 if there is no patch (or I can't update yet)?

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 does O3 Security protect against GHSA-qfc5-6r3j-jj22?

O3 pinpoints whether GHSA-qfc5-6r3j-jj22 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.

Is GHSA-qfc5-6r3j-jj22 actively exploited in the wild?

No public exploit code has been indexed for GHSA-qfc5-6r3j-jj22 yet. This does not mean the vulnerability cannot be exploited — absence of public exploits does not imply safety. Apply the recommended fix and use O3 Security to monitor your exposure.

When was GHSA-qfc5-6r3j-jj22 published, and has it been updated?

GHSA-qfc5-6r3j-jj22 was published on June 2, 2023 and was last updated on November 8, 2023. Advisory data evolves as severity scores, affected ranges, and exploit intelligence are revised — always check the latest version of the advisory before acting.

🐹 Go

GHSA-qfc5-6r3j-jj22

Go package github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk module x/crisis does NOT cause chain halt

Also known asGO-2023-1821

Published

Jun 2, 2023

Updated

Nov 8, 2023

Affected

1 pkg

Patched

None yet

Exploits

None indexed

Blast Radius

1 pkg affected

🐹github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk

Real-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

x/crisis does NOT cause chain halt

Impact

If an invariant check fails on a Cosmos SDK network and a transaction is sent to the x/crisis module to halt the chain, the chain does not halt. All versions of the x/crisis module is affected on all versions of the Cosmos SDK.

Details

The x/crisis module is supposed to allow anyone to halt a chain in the event of a violated invariant by sending a MsgVerifyInvariant with the name of the invariant. Processing this message is supposed to cause the nodes to panic. However, because the panic is within a transaction, it is caught by the SDK’s built-in panic-recovery machinery and just treated as a normal “invalid” transaction (ie. it returns a non-zero abci Code). Thus the x/crisis transactions don’t actually cause chains to halt. If there is an invariant violation, it can be confirmed with an x/crisis transaction, but it won’t cause any nodes to halt, they will just continue processing blocks.

That said, any node running with start --inv-check-period X will actually panic when it runs the periodic check (though it will still not panic just by processing an x/crisis transaction). Since this panic is located in EndBlock, it is not caught by the panic-recovery machinery and does actually crash the node. Presumably few if any nodes actually run with this in production because of how long the invariant checks take, and this runs all of them every X blocks.

Patches

No patches will be released.

The x/crisis module was originally intended to allow chains to halt rather than continue with some unknown behaviour in the case of an invariant violation (safety over liveness). However, as chains mature, and especially as the potential cost of halting increases, chains should consider carefully what invariants they really want to halt for, and what invariants are just sort of helpful sanity checks, but may not be worth halting for.

In some cases, chains have already broken the invariant calculations but have dealt with the consequences off-chain or during development. Halting these chains would be counter-productive.

The SDK team is working on new modules that allow chain developers to fine-tune the chain invariants and the necessary actions.

Hence, the decision was made that the x/crisis module will not be patched for chain halts. The module will be deprecated when new modules take over its responsibilities.

Workarounds

In case of a valid invariant check failure that requires a chain halt, the network validators are encouraged to coordinate off-chain for network halts. This has been an already established process for security patches.

References

SDK developer epic about invariant checking: https://github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/issues/15706 Public report: https://github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/issues/15325

Affected Packages

1 total

Ecosystem	Package	Vulnerable range	Fix
🐹Go	`github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk`	all versions	No fix

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

Detect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk. 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.
Remediation status
No patched version of github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk has shipped for GHSA-qfc5-6r3j-jj22 yet. Where your build allows, override or pin the dependency away from the vulnerable range, and apply any maintainer-recommended mitigation.
Mitigate without a patch
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 GHSA-qfc5-6r3j-jj22 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 GHSA-qfc5-6r3j-jj22. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.

Frequently Asked Questions

# x/crisis does NOT cause chain halt ### Impact If an invariant check fails on a Cosmos SDK network and a transaction is sent to the `x/crisis` module to halt the chain, the chain does not halt. All versions of the `x/crisis` module is affected on all versions of the Cosmos SDK. ### Details The `x/crisis` module is supposed to allow anyone to halt a chain in the event of a violated invariant by sending a `MsgVerifyInvariant` with the name of the invariant. Processing this message is supposed to cause the nodes to panic. However, because the panic is within a transaction, it is caught by the

O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

Is GHSA-qfc5-6r3j-jj22 in your dependencies?

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