NRDAX-T0408 - Unbounded Address List Validation CPU Exhaustion

memory_amp · active · first seen 2026-07-17

provenance: Reproduced in NullRabbit's attack-reproduction pipeline

mechanism

wasmd message types (MsgStoreCode, MsgStoreAndInstantiateContract, MsgUpdateInstantiateConfig, MsgAddCodeUploadParamsAddresses, etc.) carry an unbounded AccessConfig.Addresses/msg.Addresses list that ValidateBasic() de-duplicates via a map, and this validation runs during ABCI CheckTx before antehandler signature verification. An attacker submits a single unsigned tx via broadcast_tx_sync packing tens of thousands of distinct addresses (bounded only by tx-size gas cost and CometBFT max_bytes), causing large memory allocation and map-operation slowdown in the mempool of every node that receives it. The fix class is bounding/validating list length (or moving the check post-auth) in ValidateBasic before the map de-dup step.

instances (1)

chain	primitive	fidelity	origin	reproducer (bundle)	source
cosmos	cosmwasm_validate_basic_address_count	lab	reverse-engineered-cve	cosmwasm_validate_basic_address_count	-

related (memory_amp)

NRDAX-T0023 - Coalesced Packet Buffer Leak active NRDAX-T0025 - Compact Block Size Integer Overflow active NRDAX-T0038 - Count Underflow Header Serving Amplification active NRDAX-T0042 - Crypto Frame Reassembly Buffer Exhaustion active NRDAX-T0046 - Decompression Bomb Resource Exhaustion active NRDAX-T0059 - Duplicate Transport Parameter Memory Leak active NRDAX-T0061 - Duplicate Tx Mempool Index Desync active NRDAX-T0071 - Ethash Verification Memory Exhaustion active

cite

https://nrdax.com/techniques/NRDAX-T0408

plain

NRDAX Registry. Technique NRDAX-T0408.

bibtex

@misc{nrdax_NRDAX_T0408,
  title = {Unbounded Address List Validation CPU Exhaustion (NRDAX-T0408)},
  howpublished = {NRDAX Registry},
  url = {https://nrdax.com/techniques/NRDAX-T0408},
}

json (csl)

{
  "id": "nrdax-NRDAX-T0408",
  "type": "dataset",
  "title": "Unbounded Address List Validation CPU Exhaustion (NRDAX-T0408)",
  "URL": "https://nrdax.com/techniques/NRDAX-T0408",
  "publisher": "NRDAX Registry"
}

badge

[![NRDAX-T0408 in the NRDAX registry](https://nrdax.com/badge/NRDAX-T0408.svg)](https://nrdax.com/techniques/NRDAX-T0408-unbounded-address-list-validation-cpu-exhaustion)

use from the CLI

Retrieve or cite this technique from a script or the terminal with the NRDAX Python library & CLI.

Retrieve this technique

nrdax get NRDAX-T0408

Cite it (BibTeX)

nrdax cite NRDAX-T0408 --format bibtex

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