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CVE-2023-38701

CriticalCVSS 9.1 / 10
Published Oct 4, 2023·Last modified Apr 2, 2026
Affected Components(0)

No affected components available

Description

Hydra is the layer-two scalability solution for Cardano. Users of the Hydra head protocol send the UTxOs they wish to commit into the Hydra head first to the commit validator, where they remain until they are either collected into the head validator or the protocol initialisation is aborted and the value in the committed UTxOs is returned to the users who committed them. Prior to version 0.12.0, the commit validator contains a flawed check when the ViaAbort redeemer is used, which allows any user to spend any UTxO which is at the validator arbitrarily, meaning an attacker can steal the funds that users are trying to commit into the head validator. The intended behavior is that the funds must be returned to the user which committed the funds and can only be performed by a participant of the head. The initial validator also is similarly affected as the same flawed check is performed for the ViaAbort redeemer. Due to this issue, an attacker can steal any funds that user's try to commit into a Hydra head. Also, an attacker can prevent any Hydra head from being successfully opened. It does not allow an attacker to take funds which have been successfully collected into and currently reside in the head validator. Version 0.12.0 contains a fix for this issue.

Risk Scores
Base Score
9.1

The vulnerability can be exploited over the network without needing physical access. It is easy for an attacker to exploit this vulnerability. An attacker does not need any special privileges or access rights. No user interaction is needed for the attacker to exploit this vulnerability. The impact is confined to the system where the vulnerability exists. There is a high impact on the integrity of the data. There is a high impact on the availability of the system.

Threat Intelligence
8.3

Exploitation activity has been observed. Apply available patches or mitigations urgently.

EPSS
0.92%

The exploit probability is very low. The vulnerability is unlikely to be exploited in the next 30 days.

Exploit
Not available

We did not find any exploit available. Neither in GitHub repositories nor in the Exploit-Database.

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