title: Shallow copy bug in geth
description: Go Ethereum, or "Geth", is the official Golang implementation of the Ethereum protocol. This is a Consensus vulnerability in Geth before version 1.9.17 which can be used to cause a chain-split where vulnerable nodes reject the canonical chain. Geth's pre-compiled dataCopy (at 0x00...04) contract did a shallow copy on invocation. An attacker could deploy a contract that writes X to an EVM memory region R, then calls 0x00..04 with R as an argument, then overwrites R to Y, and finally invokes the RETURNDATACOPY opcode. When this contract is invoked, a consensus-compliant node would push X on the EVM stack, whereas Geth would push Y. This is fixed in version 1.9.17.
problem types: CWE-682: Incorrect Calculation
affected:
{
product: go-ethereum
vendor: ethereum
versions:
status: affected, version: >= 1.9.7, < 1.9.17
}
metrics:
cvssV3_1: [
attackComplexity: LOW
attackVector: NETWORK
availabilityImpact: NONE
baseScore: 6.5
baseSeverity: MEDIUM
confidentialityImpact: NONE
integrityImpact: HIGH
privilegesRequired: LOW
scope: UNCHANGED
userInteraction: NONE
vectorString: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
version: 3.1
]