What is CVE-2023-40591?

CVE-2023-40591 is a high-severity vulnerability in Ethereum Go-Ethereum, classified under Uncontrolled Resource Consumption. CVSS score: 7.5/10. Published 2023-09-06.

How severe is CVE-2023-40591?

High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.5 out of 10.

Resource exhaustion in Ethereum Go-Ethereum

CVE-2023-40591

go-ethereum (geth) is a golang execution layer implementation of the Ethereum protocol. A vulnerable node, can be made to consume unbounded amounts of memory when handling specially crafted p2p messages sent from an attacker node. The fix is included in geth version `1.12.1-stable`, i.e, `1.12.2-unstable` and onwards. Users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.

Vulnerability class: DoS (Denial of Service)

Published 2023-09-06 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.5 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.011 (64.8th percentile), scored 2026-09-29.

Low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, but still tracked. 65th percentile — 64.8% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.010 · newest: 0.011 · change: +0.001

Affected products

Ethereum Go-Ethereum — versions < 1.12.1-stable
Ethereum Go

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-400 — Uncontrolled Resource Consumption

References

github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/security/advisories/GHSA-ppjg-v974-84cm (Third Party Advisory)
geth.ethereum.org/docs/developers/geth-developer/disclosures (Product)
github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/releases/tag/v1.12.1 (Release Notes)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2023-40591?: CVE-2023-40591 is a high-severity vulnerability in Ethereum Go-Ethereum, classified under Uncontrolled Resource Consumption. CVSS score: 7.5/10. Published 2023-09-06.
How severe is CVE-2023-40591?: High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.5 out of 10.