CVE-2026-54542

Summary

Nimiq is a Rust implementation of the Nimiq Proof-of-Stake protocol based on the Albatross consensus algorithm. Prior to 1.6.0, a malicious state-sync peer can crash a syncing node by sending a crafted TrieChunk whose proof contains a TrieNodeChild suffix that is individually valid but exceeds the 63-byte KeyNibbles backing array when combined with the parent key. KeyNibbles::Add in primitives/src/key_nibbles.rs performs the combined slice operation without checking the total length, and the input reaches put_chunk, TrieNodeChild::key, and TrieNodeChild::is_stump before proof.verify, so the attacker does not need a valid cryptographic proof. Exploitation requires the attacker to be selected as the victim's sync peer during state sync. The resulting out-of-bounds panic is transient because the node restarts and resynchronizes. This issue is fixed in version 1.6.0.

Affected Software

VendorProductVersion RangeStatus
nimiqcore-rs-albatross< 1.6.0affected

Weaknesses

  • CWE-125: CWE-125: Out-of-bounds Read

ADP Enrichment

CISA ADP Vulnrichment

  • SSVC:
  • Exploitation: none
    • Automatable: no
    • Technical Impact: partial

References