CVE-2021-21369 MEDIUM

CVE-2021-21369: Potential DoS in Besu HTTP JSON-RPC API

Vendor Hyperledger
Product besu
Weakness CWE-400
Published March 9, 2021
Last update August 3, 2024

CVSS base score

6.5/10
Attack vector Network
Attack complexity Low
Privileges required Low
User interaction None
Confidentiality None
Integrity None

CVSS vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

What the vulnerability does

01Description

Hyperledger Besu is an open-source, MainNet compatible, Ethereum client written in Java. In Besu before version 1.5.1 there is a denial-of-service vulnerability involving the HTTP JSON-RPC API service. If username and password authentication is enabled for the HTTP JSON-RPC API service, then prior to making any requests to an API endpoint the requestor must use the login endpoint to obtain a JSON web token (JWT) using their credentials. A single user can readily overload the login endpoint with invalid requests (incorrect password). As the supplied password is checked for validity on the main vertx event loop and takes a relatively long time this can cause the processing of other valid requests to fail. A valid username is required for this vulnerability to be exposed. This has been fixed in version 1.5.1.

Key dates

02Disclosure timeline

March 9, 2021 CVE published
August 3, 2024 Record updated