GitHub Advisoryadvisory · crates.io

GHSA-5hq8-qhww-jm7q libp2p-quic: Remote panic via certificate expiry race during QUIC handshake

HIGH Published 2026-09-15 Modified 2026-09-15 Official page ↗
Aliases
CVE-2026-61544
Ecosystem
crates.io
Packages
libp2p-quic
Severity
High
CVSS vector
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Reviewed
2026-09-15

Affected packages

• crates.io libp2p-quic: < 0.13.1 → fixed in 0.13.1

Description

Summary `libp2p-quic` can panic on an inbound QUIC handshake if a malicious peer presents a valid, short lived libp2p TLS certificate and delays the final TLS 1.3 handshake fragment until the certificate expires. This is remotely reachable by a network peer and can crash applications exposing a libp2p QUIC listener. Details During the TLS handshake, `libp2p-tls` parses and validates the peer certificate. After Quinn reports handshake completion, `libp2p-quic` re-parses the same certificate in the post-handshake upgrade path and assumes this cannot fail: https://github.com/libp2p/rust-libp2p/blob/969b707bf1177ebebd1febc285c3fd22793b95c5/transports/quic/src/connection/connecting.rs#L65-L66 However, `libp2p_tls::certificate::parse()` re-runs certificate verification on every call, including a wall-clock validity check. A certificate that was valid during the first handshake time parse can expire before the second post-handshake parse, causing the `expect(...)` to panic. PoC A malicious peer can trigger this by: 1. Opening a QUIC connection to a libp2p QUIC listener. 2. Presenting a valid libp2p TLS certificate with a very short lifetime. 3. Allowing the initial handshake-time certificate validation to succeed. 4. Withholding the final client handshake fragment packet until after the certificate expires, but before the QUIC handshake timeout elapses. 5. The listener completes the handshake and hits the post-handshake certificate re-parse, which panics. Impact Remote unauthenticated denial of service. Any application exposing an affected `libp2p-quic` listener can be crashed by a network peer that performs a valid-looking QUIC/TLS handshake with attacker-controlled timing. No malformed packets are required.

Related

Alias · CVE (1)

  • CVE-2026-61544 libp2p-rust is the official Rust language implementation of the libp2p networking stack. vulnerability

References