What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2023-42806: Snapshot signature not including HeadID will allow replay attacks

• Severity: medium (CVSS 6.5 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.5% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2023-09-21 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-347

Description

Hydra is the layer-two scalability solution for Cardano. Prior to version 0.13.0, not signing and verifying `$\mathsf{cid}$` allows an attacker (which must be a participant of this head) to use a snapshot from an old head instance with the same participants to close the head or contest the state with it. This can lead to an incorrect distribution of value (= value extraction attack; hard, but possible) or prevent the head to finalize because the value available is not consistent with the closed utxo state (= denial of service; easy). A patch is planned for version 0.13.0. As a workaround, rotate keys between heads so not to re-use keys and not result in the same multi-signature participants.

Affected products

• input-output-hk hydra: before 0.13.0 — fixed in 0.13.0

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: input-output-hk hydra 0.13.0. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://github.com/input-output-hk/hydra/blob/ec6c7a2ab651462228475d0b34264e9a182c22bb/hydra-node/src/Hydra/HeadLogic.hs#L357
• https://github.com/input-output-hk/hydra/blob/ec6c7a2ab651462228475d0b34264e9a182c22bb/hydra-node/src/Hydra/Snapshot.hs#L50-L54
• https://github.com/input-output-hk/hydra/blob/ec6c7a2ab651462228475d0b34264e9a182c22bb/hydra-plutus/src/Hydra/Contract/Head.hs#L583-L599
• https://github.com/input-output-hk/hydra/security/advisories/GHSA-gr36-mc6v-72qq
• https://github.com/input-output-hk/hydra/blob/ec6c7a2ab651462228475d0b34264e9a182c22bb/hydra-node/src/Hydra/HeadLogic.hs#L357
• https://github.com/input-output-hk/hydra/blob/ec6c7a2ab651462228475d0b34264e9a182c22bb/hydra-node/src/Hydra/Snapshot.hs#L50-L54
• https://github.com/input-output-hk/hydra/blob/ec6c7a2ab651462228475d0b34264e9a182c22bb/hydra-plutus/src/Hydra/Contract/Head.hs#L583-L599
• https://github.com/input-output-hk/hydra/security/advisories/GHSA-gr36-mc6v-72qq

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