CVE-2021-43668

Go-Ethereum 1.10.9 nodes crash (denial of service) after receiving a serial of messages and cannot be recovered. They will crash with "runtime error: invalid memory address or nil pointer dereference" and arise a SEGV signal.

Published: 2021-11-18 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2021-43668 is rated Low Risk (27.2/100): CVSS Medium severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.06%). Mandatory action: Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2021-43668

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2025-03-17 0.04% 0.06% +0.01%
2 2023-03-07 0.89% 0.04% -0.84%
3 2022-04-01 0.89%

Full EPSS history (6 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2021-43668

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
5.5 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.
1.8 3.6 [email protected]
2.1 2.0 LOW
AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P Click to expand
Access vector (AV:L)
Requires local access to the target system.
Access complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and predictable.
Authentication (AU:N)
No authentication is required.
Confidentiality impact (C:N)
No confidentiality impact.
Integrity impact (I:N)
No integrity impact.
Availability impact (A:P)
Partial availability impact.
3.9 2.9 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2021-43668

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2021-43668

GHSA-5m8f-chrv-7rw5 · Severity: medium · Ecosystem: go — Denial of Service in Go-Ethereum

OS Trackers for CVE-2021-43668

vendor priority summary link
ubuntu low CVE-2021-43668 low priority: Ubuntu including 1 source packages (golang-goleveldb), 15 status rows across 15 suites (bionic, focal, hirsute, impish, jammy, kinetic, lunar, mantic, noble, oracular, plucky, questing, trusty, upstream, xenial): ignored 8, needs-triage 7. https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2021-43668

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2021-43668

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
ethereum go_ethereum 1.10.9 cpe:2.3:a:ethereum:go_ethereum:1.10.9:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2021-43668

cvelogic Threat Intelligence