CVE-2023-28431 | Frontier's modexp precompile is slow for even modulus
Frontier is an Ethereum compatibility layer for Substrate. Frontier's `modexp` precompile uses `num-bigint` crate under the hood. In the implementation prior to pull request 1017, the cases for modulus being even and modulus being odd are treated separately. Odd modulus uses the fast Montgomery multiplication, and even modulus uses the slow plain power algorithm. This gas cost discrepancy was not accounted for in the `modexp` precompile, leading to possible denial of service attacks.
No fixes for `num-bigint` are currently available, and thus this issue is fixed in the short term by raising the gas costs for even modulus, and in the long term fixing it in `num-bigint` or switching to another modexp implementation. The short-term fix for Frontier is deployed at pull request 1017. There are no known workarounds aside from applying the fix.
Conclusion & alert: CVE-2023-28431 is rated Moderate Risk (55.8/100): CVSS High severity, with medium exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.77%).Mandatory action: Review affected assets and schedule remediation.
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-2023-28431
EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).