CVE-2022-39242 MEDIUM

CVE-2022-39242: Incorrect Calculation in Frontier leads to inflated Ethereum chain gas prices

Vendor Paritytech
Product frontier
Weakness CWE-682
Published September 24, 2022
Last update April 23, 2025

CVSS base score

5.3/10
Attack vector Network
Attack complexity Low
Privileges required None
User interaction None
Confidentiality None
Integrity None

CVSS vector

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

What the vulnerability does

01Description

Frontier is an Ethereum compatibility layer for Substrate. Prior to commit d3beddc6911a559a3ecc9b3f08e153dbe37a8658, the worst case weight was always accounted as the block weight for all cases. In case of large EVM gas refunds, this can lead to block spamming attacks -- the adversary can construct blocks with transactions that have large amount of refunds or unused gases with reverts, and as a result inflate up the chain gas prices. The impact of this issue is limited in that the spamming attack would still be costly for any adversary, and it has no ability to alter any chain state. This issue has been patched in commit d3beddc6911a559a3ecc9b3f08e153dbe37a8658. There are no known workarounds.

Key dates

02Disclosure timeline

September 24, 2022 CVE published
April 23, 2025 Record updated