CVE-2026-22868 go-ethereum has a DoS via malicious p2p message

What is CVE-2026-22868?

CVE-2026-22868 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in go-ethereum, published on 13 Jan 2026. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

go-ethereum (geth) is a golang execution layer implementation of the Ethereum protocol. A vulnerable node can be forced to shutdown/crash using a specially crafted message. This vulnerability is fixed in 1.16.8.

Weakness: CWE-20

Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-22868?

3 open source packages ship an affected version, including github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum. It affects 1 product.

Products include Ethereum Go Ethereum.

How do I fix CVE-2026-22868?

Upgrade github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum to 1.16.8 or later.

Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.

Is CVE-2026-22868 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-22868 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in go-ethereum

• CVE-2026-26314 Go Ethereum affected by DoS via malicious p2p message High 8.7
• CVE-2023-42319 go-ethereum vulnerable to denial of service via crafted GraphQL query High 7.5
• CVE-2023-40591 Denial of service via malicious p2p message in go-ethereum High 7.5
• CVE-2021-42219 Denial of service in go-ethereum High 7.5
• CVE-2022-23327 Denial of Service in Go-Ethereum High 7.5

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as GHSA-mq3p-rrmp-79jg, GO-2026-4314.