GHSA-qp6f-w4r3-h8wg
GHSA-qp6f-w4r3-h8wg is a Code Injection vulnerability in zebrad. O3 Security confirms whether GHSA-qp6f-w4r3-h8wg is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
Zebra node crash — V5 transaction hash panic (P2P reachable)
Real-World Exposure
zebrad🦀zebra-chainReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects crates.io packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Remote Denial of Service via Crafted V5 Transactions
Summary
A vulnerability in Zebra's transaction processing logic allows a remote, unauthenticated attacker to cause a Zebra node to panic (crash). This is triggered by sending a specially crafted V5 transaction that passes initial deserialization but fails during transaction ID calculation.
Severity
Critical - This is a Remote Denial of Service (DoS) that requires no authentication and can be triggered by a single network message.
Affected Versions
All Zebra versions supporting V5 transactions (Network Upgrade 5 and later) prior to version 4.3.0.
Description
The vulnerability stems from Zebra lazily validating transaction fields that are eagerly validated in the librustzcash parsing logic used when Zebra computes transaction ids and auth digests for V5 transactions where Zebra panics if those computations fail.
PushTransaction messages with malformed V5 transactions are successfully deserialized as the zebra-chain Transaction type by the network codec, but when Zebra converts those transactions into internal types to compute the TxID expecting it to succeed, it triggers a panic/crash.
An attacker can trigger this crash by sending a single crafted tx message to a Zebra node's public P2P port. The same issue can be triggered via the sendrawtransaction RPC method.
Impact
Remote Denial of Service
- Attack Vector: Remote, unauthenticated.
- Effect: Immediate crash of the Zebra node.
- Scope: Any node with an open P2P port (default 8233) or exposed RPC interface is vulnerable.
Fixed Versions
This issue is fixed in Zebra 4.3.0.
The fix ensures that any transaction that would fail TxID calculation is rejected during the initial deserialization phase, and replaces internal panics with graceful error handling.
Mitigation
Users should upgrade to Zebra 4.3.0 or later immediately.
If an immediate upgrade is not possible, users should ensure their RPC port is not exposed to the Internet. However, the P2P port must remain closed or restricted to trusted peers to fully mitigate the risk, which may impact the node's ability to sync with the network.
Credits
Zebra thanks robustfengbin, who discovered this issue and reported it via coordinated disclosure process.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | zebrad | all versions | 4.3.0 |
| 🦀crates.io | zebra-chain | all versions | 6.0.1 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for zebrad. 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 zebrad to 4.3.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-qp6f-w4r3-h8wg 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 GHSA-qp6f-w4r3-h8wg 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-qp6f-w4r3-h8wg. 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-qp6f-w4r3-h8wg in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-qp6f-w4r3-h8wg across crates.io dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.