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PYSEC-2026-2029
vypervypervyperImpact
concat() may skip evaluation of side effects when the length of an argument is zero. this is due to a fastpath in the implementation which skips evaluation of argument expressions when their length is zero:
https://github.com/vyperlang/vyper/blob/68b68c4b30c5ef2f312b4674676170b8a6eaa316/vyper/builtins/functions.py#L560-L562
in practice, it would be very unusual in user code to construct zero-length bytestrings using an expression with side-effects, since zero-length bytestrings are typically constructed with the empty literal b""; the only way to construct an empty bytestring which has side effects would be with the ternary operator introduced in v0.3.8, e.g. b"" if self.do_some_side_effect() else b"".
the following example demonstrates how the issue would look in user code
counter: public(uint256)
@external
def test() -> Bytes[256]:
a: Bytes[256] = concat(b"" if self.sideeffect() else b"", b"aaaa")
return a
def sideeffect() -> bool:
self.counter += 1
return True
the severity assigned is low, since, as mentioned, this would be a very unusual pattern in user-code.
Patches
fix is tracked in https://github.com/vyperlang/vyper/pull/4644
Workarounds
don't have side effects in expressions which construct zero-length bytestrings.
References
Are there any links users can visit to find out more?
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.
Limited exploitation activity has been observed. Close monitoring and planned remediation are recommended.
The exploit probability is very low. The vulnerability is unlikely to be exploited in the next 30 days.
We did not find any exploit available. Neither in GitHub repositories nor in the Exploit-Database.
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