CVE-2022-39242

Incorrect Calculation in Frontier leads to inflated Ethereum chain gas prices

MEDIUM
5.3
CVSS Score
Published: September 24, 2022 at 01:25 AM UTC
Updated: June 17, 2026 at 04:57 AM UTC
2 products affected across 2 vendorsFrontierFrontier

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Severity
MEDIUM5.3
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.8%
SSVC
No known exploit

Description

Frontier is an Ethereum compatibility layer for Substrate. Prior to commit d3beddc6911a559a3ecc9b3f08e153dbe37a8658, the worst case weight was always accounted as the block weight for all cases. In case of large EVM gas refunds, this can lead to block spamming attacks -- the adversary can construct blocks with transactions that have large amount of refunds or unused gases with reverts, and as a result inflate up the chain gas prices. The impact of this issue is limited in that the spamming attack would still be costly for any adversary, and it has no ability to alter any chain state. This issue has been patched in commit d3beddc6911a559a3ecc9b3f08e153dbe37a8658. There are no known workarounds.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

v < 2022-09-12
Affected range stops below 2022-09-12, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement
< commit d3beddc6911a559a3ecc9b3f08e153dbe37a8658

Remediation

No guide yet

No remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet. What the record does show:

References (2)

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCNo known exploitAutomatablePartial impact

SSVC signals action urgency (what to patch first), separate from CVSS which measures severity.

CVSS

5.3MEDIUMGitHub_M
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Complexity
LOW
Privileges
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
NONE
Integrity
NONE
Availability
LOW
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusMODIFIED
CWE
CWE-682

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