CVE-2026-52738

ZEBRA: Finalized address balance credit-first overflow on consensus-valid blocks

Published Aug 18, 2026 CVSS 4.0 · 6.9 Medium EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed
Description
ZEBRA is a Zcash node written entirely in Rust. Prior to 4.5.0, a consensus-valid block containing a long chain of transparent self-spends to one address can permanently halt Zebra nodes. In zebra-state/src/service/finalized_state/zebra_db/transparent.rs, the finalized-state writer originally applied every newly created output as a credit before applying any spent-output debit from the same block. That credit-first ordering can make the intermediate per-address balance exceed MAX_MONEY even though the final net balance is valid, causing an expect-based panic under the panic equals abort release profile. Because zcashd accepts the triggering block and Zebra encounters it again after every restart, the halt persists until patched software is deployed; exploitation requires mining the specially constructed block and temporarily committing sufficient ZEC to the self-spend chain. This issue is fixed in version 4.5.0.

Remediation

No solution or workaround provided in the CVE record

Tracking

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Advisories

Source ID Title
Github GHSA Github GHSA GHSA-w834-cf6p-9m9w Zebra: Finalized address balance credit-first overflow on consensus-valid blocks
History
Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics ssvc

{'options': {'Automatable': 'no', 'Exploitation': 'none', 'Technical Impact': 'partial'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}

Type Values Removed Values Added
First Time appeared Zcashfoundation
Zcashfoundation zebra
Zcashfoundation zebra-state
Vendors & Products Zcashfoundation
Zcashfoundation zebra
Zcashfoundation zebra-state
Type Values Removed Values Added
Description ZEBRA is a Zcash node written entirely in Rust. Prior to 4.5.0, a consensus-valid block containing a long chain of transparent self-spends to one address can permanently halt Zebra nodes. In zebra-state/src/service/finalized_state/zebra_db/transparent.rs, the finalized-state writer originally applied every newly created output as a credit before applying any spent-output debit from the same block. That credit-first ordering can make the intermediate per-address balance exceed MAX_MONEY even though the final net balance is valid, causing an expect-based panic under the panic equals abort release profile. Because zcashd accepts the triggering block and Zebra encounters it again after every restart, the halt persists until patched software is deployed; exploitation requires mining the specially constructed block and temporarily committing sufficient ZEC to the self-spend chain. This issue is fixed in version 4.5.0.
Title ZEBRA: Finalized address balance credit-first overflow on consensus-valid blocks
Weaknesses CWE-248
References
Metrics cvssV4_0

{'score': 6.9, 'vector': 'CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N'}

Weaknesses

Sources

Status
PUBLISHED
Assigner
GitHub_M
Published
Updated
Aug 19, 2026, 3:19 PM
Reserved
Jun 8, 2026, 2:00 PM
Status
Deferred
Published
Aug 18, 2026, 8:17 PM
Modified
Nov 9, 2026, 8:10 PM