Ethermint DoS through Unintended Contract Selfdestruct

Summary

Ethermint is an Ethereum library. In Ethermint running versions before `v0.17.2`, the contract `selfdestruct` invocation permanently removes the corresponding bytecode from the internal database storage. However, due to a bug in the `DeleteAccount`function, all contracts that used the identical bytecode (i.e shared the same `CodeHash`) will also stop working once one contract invokes `selfdestruct`, even though the other contracts did not invoke the `selfdestruct` OPCODE. This vulnerability has been patched in Ethermint version v0.18.0. The patch has state machine-breaking changes for applications using Ethermint, so a coordinated upgrade procedure is required. A workaround is available. If a contract is subject to DoS due to this issue, the user can redeploy the same contract, i.e. with identical bytecode, so that the original contract's code is recovered. The new contract deployment restores the `bytecode hash -> bytecode` entry in the internal state.

Timeline

1. Aug 5, 2022, 12:55 PM UTCCVE published
2. Apr 22, 2025, 3:39 PM UTCCISA SSVC assessment

   Exploitation: poc · Automatable: yes · Technical impact: partial

3. Apr 22, 2025, 5:42 PM UTCRecord last updated

Affected versions

• evmos ethermint

  through 0.17.2

• github.com/crypto-org-chain/cronosGo

  fixed in 0.7.1-rc2

• github.com/evmos/ethermintGo

  fixed in 0.18.0

• github.com/evmos/evmosGo

  All versions

• github.com/evmos/evmos/v2Go

  All versions

• github.com/evmos/evmos/v3Go

  All versions

• github.com/evmos/evmos/v4Go

  All versions

• github.com/evmos/evmos/v5Go

  All versions

• github.com/evmos/evmos/v6Go

  All versions

• github.com/evmos/evmos/v7Go

  fixed in 7.0.0

• github.com/kava-labs/kavaGo

  fixed in 0.18.0

• github.com/evmos/evmosGo

  fixed in 7.0.0

• github.com/Kava-Labs/kavaGo

  fixed in 0.18.0

References 3