CVE-2023-33297 – This vulnerability in Bitcoin Core allows attac... (How to Fix)

Q: What is the severity of CVE-2023-33297?

CVE-2023-33297 has a CVSS score of 7.5 (HIGH). This vulnerability in Bitcoin Core allows attackers to cause denial of service through inefficient draining of the inventory-to-send queue, leading to excessive CPU consumption. It affects Bitcoin Core nodes running versions before 24.1 when not in debug mode, potentially disrupting network operations.

📋 TL;DR

This vulnerability in Bitcoin Core allows attackers to cause denial of service through inefficient draining of the inventory-to-send queue, leading to excessive CPU consumption. It affects Bitcoin Core nodes running versions before 24.1 when not in debug mode, potentially disrupting network operations.

💻 Affected Systems

Products:

Bitcoin Core

Versions: All versions before 24.1

Operating Systems: All platforms running Bitcoin Core

Default Config Vulnerable: ⚠️ Yes

Notes: Only affects nodes not running in debug mode; debug mode is not vulnerable

📦 What is this software?

Bitcoin Core by Bitcoin

View all CVEs affecting Bitcoin Core →

⚠️ Risk & Real-World Impact

🔴

Worst Case

Complete node unavailability due to CPU exhaustion, preventing transaction processing and network participation

🟠

Likely Case

Degraded node performance, increased latency, and potential service disruption during attack periods

🟢

If Mitigated

Minimal impact with proper patching and monitoring in place

🌐 Internet-Facing: HIGH

🏢 Internal Only: LOW

🎯 Exploit Status

Public PoC: ✅ No

Weaponized: CONFIRMED

Unauthenticated Exploit: ⚠️ Yes

Complexity: LOW

Exploited in the wild in May 2023; attack requires network access to vulnerable node

🛠️ Fix & Mitigation

✅ Official Fix

Patch Version: 24.1 and later

Vendor Advisory: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/doc/release-notes/release-notes-24.1.md

Restart Required: Yes

Instructions:

1. Download Bitcoin Core 24.1 or later from bitcoin.org 2. Stop the Bitcoin Core service 3. Install the new version 4. Restart the service

🔧 Temporary Workarounds

Enable debug mode

all

Run Bitcoin Core with debug mode enabled to avoid the vulnerability

bitcoind -debug

🧯 If You Can't Patch

Enable debug mode as temporary mitigation
Implement network segmentation and restrict inbound connections to trusted peers only

🔍 How to Verify

Check if Vulnerable:

Check Bitcoin Core version with 'bitcoin-cli getnetworkinfo' and verify version is below 24.1

Check Version:

bitcoin-cli getnetworkinfo | grep version

Verify Fix Applied:

Confirm version is 24.1 or higher using 'bitcoin-cli getnetworkinfo'

📡 Detection & Monitoring

Log Indicators:

Unusual CPU spikes
Increased memory usage
Slow peer connections
Queue processing delays

Network Indicators:

Excessive inbound connections
Unusual network traffic patterns
Connection timeouts

SIEM Query:

source="bitcoin.log" AND ("CPU" OR "memory" OR "slow" OR "queue")

📊 Metadata

CVE ID: CVE-2023-33297

CVSS v3 Score: 7.5 (HIGH)

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

CWE: CWE-400

Published: May 22, 2023

Last Updated: January 28, 2025

🔗 References

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