Impact
The btcd Bitcoin client (versions 0.10 to 0.24) did not correctly re-implement Bitcoin Core's "FindAndDelete()" functionality. This
logic is consensus-critical: the difference in behavior with the other Bitcoin clients can lead to btcd clients accepting an invalid Bitcoin block (or rejecting a valid one).
This consensus failure can be leveraged to cause a chain split (accepting an invalid Bitcoin block) or be exploited to DoS the btcd nodes (rejecting a valid Bitcoin block). An attacker can create a standard transaction where FindAndDelete doesn't return a match but removeOpCodeByData does making btcd get a different sighash, leading to a chain split. Importantly, this vulnerability can be exploited remotely by any Bitcoin user and does not require any hash power. This is because the difference in behavior can be triggered by a "standard" Bitcoin
transaction, that is a transaction which gets relayed through the P2P network before it gets included in a Bitcoin block.
FindAndDelete
vs. removeOpcodeByData
removeOpcodeByData(script []byte, dataToRemove []byte)
removes any data pushes from script
that contain dataToRemove
. However, FindAndDelete
only removes exact matches. So for example, with script = "<data> <data||foo>"
and dataToRemove = "data"
btcd will remove both data pushes but Bitcoin Core's FindAndDelete
only removes the first <data>
push.
Patches
This has been patched in btcd
version v0.24.2-beta.
References
FindAndDelete
: GHSA-27vh-h6mc-q6g8
Impact
The btcd Bitcoin client (versions 0.10 to 0.24) did not correctly re-implement Bitcoin Core's "FindAndDelete()" functionality. This
logic is consensus-critical: the difference in behavior with the other Bitcoin clients can lead to btcd clients accepting an invalid Bitcoin block (or rejecting a valid one).
This consensus failure can be leveraged to cause a chain split (accepting an invalid Bitcoin block) or be exploited to DoS the btcd nodes (rejecting a valid Bitcoin block). An attacker can create a standard transaction where FindAndDelete doesn't return a match but removeOpCodeByData does making btcd get a different sighash, leading to a chain split. Importantly, this vulnerability can be exploited remotely by any Bitcoin user and does not require any hash power. This is because the difference in behavior can be triggered by a "standard" Bitcoin
transaction, that is a transaction which gets relayed through the P2P network before it gets included in a Bitcoin block.
FindAndDelete
vs.removeOpcodeByData
removeOpcodeByData(script []byte, dataToRemove []byte)
removes any data pushes fromscript
that containdataToRemove
. However,FindAndDelete
only removes exact matches. So for example, withscript = "<data> <data||foo>"
anddataToRemove = "data"
btcd will remove both data pushes but Bitcoin Core'sFindAndDelete
only removes the first<data>
push.Patches
This has been patched in
btcd
version v0.24.2-beta.References
FindAndDelete
: GHSA-27vh-h6mc-q6g8