CometBFT Vote Extensions: Panic when receiving a Pre-commit with an invalid data

Exploitation

No confirmed exploitation recorded. Patch Next marks exploitation only from CISA KEV.

CVSS 4.0

8.3 · CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N · score source

EPSS

No dated EPSS signal available.

As published by the source; long descriptions are shortened.

Name: ASA-2024-011: Vote Extensions: Panic when receiving a Pre-commit with an invalid data Component: CometBFT Criticality: High (Considerable Impact, and Possible Likelihood per ACMv1.2) Affected versions: = 0.38.x, unreleased v1.x and main development branches Affected users: Chain Builders + Maintainers, Validators Impact A CometBFT node running in a network with [vote extensions][abci-spec] enabled could produce an invalid Vote message and send it to its peers. The invalid field of the Vote message is the ValidatorIndex, which identifies the sender in the ValidatorSet running that height of consensus. This field is ordinarily verified in the processing of Vote messages, but it turns out that in the case of a Vote message of type Precommit and for a non-nil BlockID, a logic was introduced before this ordinary verification to handle the attached vote extension. This introduced logic (not present in releases prior to 0.38.x) does not double-check the validity of the ValidatorIndex…

Published by the source

6 Nov 2024, 15:33 UTC

Last modified by the source

2 Sep 2026, 22:06 UTC

Source last checked

26 Oct 2026, 15:28 UTC

1. Revision 1 · created · 26 Oct 2026

   Published from ghsa record GHSA-p7mv-53f2-4cwj

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# Patch Next advisory brief: GHSA-p7mv-53f2-4cwj

Advisory: CometBFT Vote Extensions: Panic when receiving a Pre-commit with an invalid data
IDs: GHSA-p7mv-53f2-4cwj
Record: https://patchnext.com/advisories/ghsa-p7mv-53f2-4cwj (revision 1, source checked 26 Oct 2026, 15:28 UTC)
Inventory: none attached. This brief comes from a public page and does not say whether any deployment is affected.
Severity: High (CVSS 8.3)
Exploitation: no confirmed exploitation recorded. Patch Next confirms exploitation only from CISA KEV.
Vendor response: Vendor fix available; fixed versions by package: github.com/cometbft/cometbft 0.38.15. A vendor fix does not mean a deployment is fixed.

## Affected components
- Go github.com/cometbft/cometbft: affected >= 0.38.0, < 0.38.15; fixed in 0.38.15

## Suggested inspection (read-only)
- Go github.com/cometbft/cometbft: check the installed version with your package manager.

## Supported action
Upgrade each affected component to a fixed version on its release line. For a transitive dependency, upgrade the parent package or add an override or constraint, then regenerate the lockfile. Redeploy every environment that ran an affected version.

## Required regression checks
- Run the test suite and a production build.
- Exercise the features that depend on github.com/cometbft/cometbft.
- Repeat the inspection and confirm that only fixed versions remain installed.

## Rollback considerations
- Keep the previous lockfile and deployment artifact. Rolling back reinstates the vulnerable version, so apply any documented mitigation while you fix forward.

## Unresolved questions
- Which deployments run an affected version?
- Exploitation status can change. Check again before lowering the priority.
- Mark the work resolved only after the fixed version is verified in production.

## Sources
- Verified: https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-p7mv-53f2-4cwj (GitHub-reviewed advisory GHSA-p7mv-53f2-4cwj lists affected ranges: Go github.com/cometbft/cometbft >=0.38.0 <0.38.15)

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