CVE-2023-28431

Frontier's modexp precompile is slow for even modulus

HIGH
7.5
CVSS Score
Published: March 22, 2023 at 08:11 PM UTC
Updated: June 17, 2026 at 05:47 AM UTC
2 products affected across 2 vendorsFrontierFrontier

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Severity
HIGH7.5
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.9%
SSVC
No known exploit

Description

Frontier is an Ethereum compatibility layer for Substrate. Frontier's `modexp` precompile uses `num-bigint` crate under the hood. In the implementation prior to pull request 1017, the cases for modulus being even and modulus being odd are treated separately. Odd modulus uses the fast Montgomery multiplication, and even modulus uses the slow plain power algorithm. This gas cost discrepancy was not accounted for in the `modexp` precompile, leading to possible denial of service attacks. No fixes for `num-bigint` are currently available, and thus this issue is fixed in the short term by raising the gas costs for even modulus, and in the long term fixing it in `num-bigint` or switching to another modexp implementation. The short-term fix for Frontier is deployed at pull request 1017. There are no known workarounds aside from applying the fix.

Affected

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

v < 2023-03-15
Affected range stops below 2023-03-15, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCNo known exploitAutomatablePartial impact

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

CVSS

7.5HIGHGitHub_M
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Complexity
LOW
Privileges
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
NONE
Integrity
NONE
Availability
HIGH
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusMODIFIED
CWE
CWE-682

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