CVE-2026-34068

nimiq-transaction: UpdateValidator transactions allows voting key change without proof-of-knowledge

State
Published
Severity
6.8 Medium
Published
Apr 22, 2026
Updated
Apr 23, 2026
Reserved
Mar 25, 2026

Read the record on cve.org

Description

nimiq-transaction provides the transaction primitive to be used in Nimiq's Rust implementation. Prior to version 1.3.0, the staking contract accepts `UpdateValidator` transactions that set `new_voting_key=Some(...)` while omitting `new_proof_of_knowledge`. this skips the proof-of-knowledge requirement that is needed to prevent BLS rogue-key attacks when public keys are aggregated. Because tendermint macro block justification verification aggregates validator voting keys and verifies a single aggregated BLS signature against that aggregate public key, a rogue-key voting key in the validator set can allow an attacker to forge a quorum-looking justification while only producing a single signature. While the impact is critical, the exploitability is low: The voting keys are fixed for the epoch, so the attacker would need to know the next epoch validator set (chosen through VRF), which is unlikely. The patch for this vulnerability is included as part of v1.3.0. No known workarounds are available.

Scores

CVSSScoreVectorSource
3.16.8 MediumCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:H/A:NGitHub_M

Weaknesses

  • CWE-347 Improper Verification of Cryptographic Signature

Affected Products

ProductVersions
nimiq-transactionnimiq
  • < 1.3.0Affected

References

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