CVE-2023-46132 | Crosslinking transaction attack in hyperledger/fabric

Exp

Hyperledger Fabric is an open source permissioned distributed ledger framework. Combining two molecules to one another, called "cross-linking" results in a molecule with a chemical formula that is composed of all atoms of the original two molecules. In Fabric, one can take a block of transactions and cross-link the transactions in a way that alters the way the peers parse the transactions. If a first peer receives a block B and a second peer receives a block identical to B but with the transactions being cross-linked, the second peer will parse transactions in a different way and thus its world state will deviate from the first peer. Orderers or peers cannot detect that a block has its transactions cross-linked, because there is a vulnerability in the way Fabric hashes the transactions of blocks. It simply and naively concatenates them, which is insecure and lets an adversary craft a "cross-linked block" (block with cross-linked transactions) which alters the way peers process transactions. For example, it is possible to select a transaction and manipulate a peer to completely avoid processing it, without changing the computed hash of the block. Additional validations have been added in v2.2.14 and v2.5.5 to detect potential cross-linking issues before processing blocks. Users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.

Published: 2023-11-14 Last update: 2024-11-21 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2023-46132 is rated Exploit Available (57.7/100): CVSS High severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.52%). Core evidence: 1 public exploit reference(s) are indexed (Exploit-DB). Mandatory action: Public exploits are available—assess exposure, apply mitigations, and prioritize patching.

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

Public exploit references (Exploit-DB) for CVE-2023-46132

EDB-ID Source Kind Published Link
nvd_ref exploit_tag Exploit-DB ↗

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2023-46132

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 2026-06-15 0.18% 0.52% +0.34%
2 2026-03-04 0.09% 0.18% +0.09%
3 2026-03-01 0.09%

Full EPSS history (28 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2023-46132

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
7.1 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:L Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
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:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:L)
Might cause slowdowns, glitches, or partial disruption—not a full brick.
2.8 4.2 [email protected]
6.5 3.1 MEDIUM
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
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:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
2.8 3.6 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2023-46132

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2023-46132

GHSA-v9w2-543f-h69m · Severity: high · Ecosystem: go — Fabric vulnerable to crosslinking transaction attack

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2023-46132

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
hyperledger fabric >= 1.0.0, < 2.2.14 cpe:2.3:a:hyperledger:fabric:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
hyperledger fabric >= 2.3.0, < 2.5.5 cpe:2.3:a:hyperledger:fabric:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

References for CVE-2023-46132

cvelogic Threat Intelligence