- Reported
-
- Issued
-
- Package
-
nostr-relay-pool
(crates.io)
- Type
-
Vulnerability
- Categories
-
- Keywords
-
#cache-poisoning
#signature-verification
- Aliases
-
- References
-
- CVSS Score
- 7.5
HIGH
- CVSS Details
-
- Attack Vector
- Network
- Attack Complexity
- Low
- Privileges Required
- None
- User Interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality Impact
- None
- Integrity Impact
- High
- Availability Impact
- None
- CVSS Vector
- CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
- Patched
-
Description
The nostr-relay-pool crate cached the result of event signature verification
before the check was actually performed. Because the entry was inserted
unconditionally, a first delivery whose signature failed was still recorded
in the cache. A subsequent delivery of the same event (identical ID,
but with a forged signature) would then hit the cache, causing signature
verification to be skipped entirely. The forged event was passed on to
NostrDatabase::save_event() as if it had been validated.
Applications that connect to untrusted or compromised Nostr relays and persist
received events are vulnerable. An attacker can inject arbitrary events
without a valid signature into the application's trusted database, enabling
impersonation of any public key or corruption of application state derived from
stored events.
The issue does not compromise confidentiality or availability. It solely
undermines the integrity of stored event data.
The fix, released in version 0.44.2, moves the cache insertion to occur only
after a successful signature verification, so that failed attempts never create
a cache entry.
Credit
Discovered and reported by Ali Al-Sorehi
Advisory available under CC0-1.0
license.