CVE-2026-52739 PUBLISHED

ZEBRA: Repeated Non-Finalized Shielded Transaction Aborts Zebra Before Duplicate-Nullifier Rejection

Assigner: GitHub_M
Reserved: 08.06.2026 Published: 18.08.2026 Updated: 18.08.2026

ZEBRA is a Zcash node written entirely in Rust. Prior to 4.5.0, a malicious block producer can terminate zebrad by placing the same shielded transaction in a non-finalized parent block and its child. In zebra-state/src/service/non_finalized_state/chain.rs, Chain::push originally inserted the transaction hash into tx_loc_by_hash and asserted uniqueness before updating shielded data and running the duplicate Sprout, Sapling, or Orchard nullifier checks. The repeated transaction therefore reached the transactions must be unique within a single chain assertion before contextual validation could reject it cleanly. Zebra release builds use panic equals abort, so the reachable assertion terminates the entire process; exploitation requires either two consecutive attacker-mined blocks or an attacker-mined child immediately after an honest block includes the attacker's shielded transaction. This issue is fixed in version 4.5.0.

Metrics

CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CVSS Score: 5.9

Product Status

Vendor ZcashFoundation
Product zebra
Versions
  • Version < 4.5.0 is affected
Vendor ZcashFoundation
Product zebra-state
Versions
  • Version < 7.0.0 is affected

References

Problem Types

  • CWE-248: Uncaught Exception CWE