GitHub Advisoryadvisory · crates.io
GHSA-jv4h-j224-23cc Zebra's Block Validator Undercounts Coinbase and P2SH Sigops
CRITICAL
Official page ↗
- Aliases
- CVE-2026-44498
- Ecosystem
- crates.io
- Packages
- zebrad
- Severity
- Critical
- CVSS vector
- CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
- Weaknesses
- CWE-682
- Reviewed
- 2026-05-07
Affected packages
• crates.io zebrad: < 4.4.0 → fixed in 4.4.0
Description
Zebra's block validator undercounts transparent signature operations against the 20000-sigop block limit (`MAX_BLOCK_SIGOPS`), allowing it to accept blocks that `zcashd` rejects with `bad-blk-sigops`. A miner who produces such a block can split the network: Zebra nodes follow the offending chain while `zcashd` nodes do not.
Two distinct undercounts:
A: Coinbase Hidden Legacy Sigops
`zcashd`'s `GetLegacySigOpCount()` includes the coinbase input's `scriptSig`. Zebra's `Sigops` impl skipped the coinbase input entirely, so up to ~98 sigops (the 100-byte coinbase script length cap, less the height prefix) could be hidden inside the coinbase `scriptSig` without being charged against the block limit.
B: Aggregate P2SH Sigops.
`zcashd`'s `GetP2SHSigOpCount()` parses each P2SH input's redeem script with `accurate=true` and sums those sigops into the block-wide total via `ConnectBlock`. The check is per-block, not per-transaction, and the limit applies regardless of who mines the offending block — a miner just needs to include enough P2SH-spending transactions whose redeem scripts together exceed 20000 sigops. Zebra computed P2SH sigops only on the mempool-acceptance path (used for ZIP-317 weighting) and never accumulated them during block validation. A block whose aggregate redeem-script sigops exceed 20000 (e.g. 1334 P2SH spends × 15 sigops = 20010) would be accepted by Zebra and rejected by `zcashd`.
Patches
Fixed in this release: https://github.com/ZcashFoundation/zebra/releases/tag/v4.4.0.
Workarounds
None. Operators relying on Zebra for consensus should upgrade.
Resources
• `MAX_BLOCK_SIGOPS` constant inherited from Bitcoin via the Zcash protocol spec's §7.6 catch-all "Other rules inherited from Bitcoin", tracked for explicit documentation in zcash/zips#568.
• `zcashd` `GetLegacySigOpCount`:
• `zcashd` `GetP2SHSigOpCount`:
• `zcashd` `ConnectBlock` aggregates per-tx sigops and compares against `MAX_BLOCK_SIGOPS`.
Related
Alias · CVE (1)
- CVE-2026-44498 ZEBRA is a Zcash node written entirely in Rust. vulnerability
Weakness · CWE (1)
- CWE-682 Incorrect Calculation weakness