CVE-2021-41138
5.3 · MEDIUMOverview
CVE-2021-41138 is a medium-severity vulnerability affecting parity frontier. It was published on October 13, 2021 and has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 5.3 (MEDIUM).
This vulnerability has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 5.3, rated MEDIUM. It can be exploited remotely over the network. No authentication or special privileges are required for exploitation.
Technical Description
Frontier is Substrate's Ethereum compatibility layer. In the newly introduced signed Frontier-specific extrinsic for `pallet-ethereum`, a large part of transaction validation logic was only called in transaction pool validation, but not in block execution. Malicious validators can take advantage of this to put invalid transactions into a block. The attack is limited in that the signature is always validated, and the majority of the validation is done again in the subsequent `pallet-evm` execution logic. However, do note that a chain ID replay attack was possible. In addition, spamming attacks are of main concerns, while they are limited by Substrate block size limits and other factors. The issue is patched in commit `146bb48849e5393004be5c88beefe76fdf009aba`.
Remediation
Check the references section for vendor advisories and patches from parity. Update frontier to the latest patched version. If immediate patching is not possible, review the CVSS vector to understand the attack surface and apply compensating controls such as network segmentation or access restrictions.
Affected Products
| Vendor | Product | Versions | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| parity | frontier | >= 2021-09-30, < 2021-10-13 | Affected |
References
Frequently Asked Questions
What is CVE-2021-41138?
CVE-2021-41138 is a medium-severity vulnerability affecting parity frontier. It was published on October 13, 2021 and has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 5.3 (MEDIUM).
How severe is CVE-2021-41138?
This vulnerability has a CVSS 3.1 base score of 5.3, rated MEDIUM. It can be exploited remotely over the network. No authentication or special privileges are required for exploitation.
How do I fix or remediate CVE-2021-41138?
Check the references section for vendor advisories and patches from parity. Update frontier to the latest patched version. If immediate patching is not possible, review the CVSS vector to understand the attack surface and apply compensating controls such as network segmentation or access restrictions.
How can CyberStrike help with CVE-2021-41138?
CyberStrike's AI-powered security agents can automatically detect CVE-2021-41138 across your infrastructure using autonomous pentesting, DAST scanning, and HackBrowser. The platform continuously monitors for known vulnerabilities and provides actionable remediation guidance prioritized by real-world exploitability.
How CyberStrike Helps
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