CVE-2021-42766 describes a critical denial-of-service vulnerability in the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) Ethereum consensus protocol, affecting all versions through October 19, 2021. An attacker with minimal stake can trigger long-range consensus chain reorganizations, leading to a protocol stall or increased validator profits. This vulnerability carries a CVSS score of 9.1 (Critical) due to its network-based attack vector, low attack complexity, and high impact on integrity and availability. Despite its severity, there is no evidence of active exploitation, public exploit code (Metasploit, Nuclei, ExploitDB), or significant community discussion or media coverage.
| Vendor | Product | Version(s) | CPE |
|---|---|---|---|
<= 2021-10-19CPE matchmatch criteria | cpe:2.3:a:proof-of-stake_ethereum_project:proof-of-stake_ethereum:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
CVSS version used by this source: 3.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H
The average CVE in this peer group has 0.0 Twitter, 0.1 Reddit, 0.3 Bluesky, 0.3 Mastodon, and 2.4 GitHub mentions.
No media coverage found for this CVE.
The average CVE in this peer group has 0.3 InfoSec Media, 0.0 Vendor Blog, and 0.0 Security Researcher mentions.
Remediation records are not available for this CVE.