CVE-2026-28402 nimiq/core-rs-albatross's nimiq-blockchain missing proposal body root verification
A malicious validator can crash other validator nodes by publishing macro block proposals with mismatched body roots, requiring an upgrade to fix.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- None listed
What is CVE-2026-28402?
CVE-2026-28402 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in nimiq core-rs-albatross, published on 27 Feb 2026. Any signed-in user can exploit it over the network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
nimiq/core-rs-albatross is a Rust implementation of the Nimiq Proof-of-Stake protocol based on the Albatross consensus algorithm. Prior to version 1.2.2, a malicious or compromised validator that is elected as proposer can publish a macro block proposal where `header.body_root` does not match the actual macro body hash. The proposal can pass proposal verification because the macro proposal verification path validates the header but does not validate the binding `body_root == hash(body)`; later code expects this binding and may panic on mismatch, crashing validators. Note that the impact is only for validator nodes. The patch for this vulnerability is formally released as part of v1.2.2. The patch adds the corresponding body root verification in the proposal checks. No known workarounds are available.
Weakness: CWE-354
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-28402?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Nimiq Nimiq Proof-of-Stake.
How do I fix CVE-2026-28402?
No fix has been published for CVE-2026-28402 yet. Limit exposure of the affected software until one is available.
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-2026-28402 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-28402 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in nimiq core-rs-albatross
- CVE-2026-33471 nimiq-block has skip block quorum bypass via out-of-range BitSet indices & u16 truncation
- CVE-2026-40093 nimiq-blockchain is missing a wall-clock upper bound on block timestamps
- CVE-2026-34063 network-libp2p: Peer can crash the node by opening discovery protocol substream twice
- CVE-2026-34065 nimiq-primitives: Node crash due to missing interlink validation in election macro block proposals
- CVE-2026-32605 Nimiq: Remote crash via off-by-one signer bounds check in proposal buffer
Sources
Also known as GHSA-7wh6-rmxx-ww47.