CVE-2024-45304: OwnableTwoStep allows a pending owner to accept ownership after the original owner has renounced ownership in cairo-contracts

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: 2024-08-31 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-670

Description

Cairo-Contracts are OpenZeppelin Contracts written in Cairo for Starknet, a decentralized ZK Rollup. This vulnerability can lead to unauthorized ownership transfer, contrary to the original owner's intention of leaving the contract without an owner. It introduces a security risk where an unintended party (pending owner) can gain control of the contract after the original owner has renounced ownership. This could also be used by a malicious owner to simulate leaving a contract without an owner, to later regain ownership by previously having proposed himself as a pending owner. This issue has been addressed in release version 0.16.0. All users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.

Affected products

openzeppelin-contracts: before 0.16.0 — fixed in 0.16.0

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: openzeppelin-contracts 0.16.0. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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