CVE-2020-5232: Ethereum Name Service - Malicious takeover of previously owned ENS names

Severity: high (CVSS 8.7 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 1.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2020-01-31 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-285

Description

A user who owns an ENS domain can set a trapdoor, allowing them to transfer ownership to another user, and later regain ownership without the new owners consent or awareness. A new ENS deployment is being rolled out that fixes this vulnerability in the ENS registry.

Affected products

Ens.Domains Ethereum Name Service: through 0.1.0

References

https://github.com/ensdomains/ens/commit/36e10e71fcddcade88646821e0a57cc6c19e1ecf
https://github.com/ensdomains/ens/security/advisories/GHSA-8f9f-pc5v-9r5h
https://github.com/ensdomains/ens/commit/36e10e71fcddcade88646821e0a57cc6c19e1ecf
https://github.com/ensdomains/ens/security/advisories/GHSA-8f9f-pc5v-9r5h

Get alerted when CVE-2020-5232 or the next vulnerability affects your stack