Mempool admission denial via peer queue saturation
Published Aug 18, 2026 · Updated Aug 18, 2026
Denial of service in Zebra before 4.5.0 allows remote attackers to block mempool transaction admission via crafted P2P inv messages. In zebrad/src/components/mempool/downloads.rs, a single global 25-slot download and verification queue lacks per-peer accounting, and zebrad/src/components/inbound.rs converts FullQueue into Response::Nil so overload never reaches peer disconnection handling. Any unauthenticated peer that advertises fake transaction IDs and then withholds the transactions can keep refilling expired slots, denying honest peer traffic and local sendrawtransaction requests while block validation and synchronization continue.
Summary
What happened
Denial of service in Zebra before 4.5.0 allows remote attackers to block mempool transaction admission via crafted P2P inv messages. In zebrad/src/components/mempool/downloads.rs, a single global 25-slot download and verification queue lacks per-peer accounting, and zebrad/src/components/inbound.rs converts FullQueue into Response::Nil so overload never reaches peer disconnection handling. Any unauthenticated peer that advertises fake transaction IDs and then withholds the transactions can keep refilling expired slots, denying honest peer traffic and local sendrawtransaction requests while block validation and synchronization continue.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2026-52732
- Published
- Aug 18, 2026
- Updated
- Aug 18, 2026
- Vendor
- Zcash Foundation
- Product
- Zebra
- Classifications
- CWE-770, T1499
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- unauthenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Aug 18, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Aug 18, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
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- Affected versionversion=< 4.5.0
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What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
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Attacks
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Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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