CVE-2025-54426: polkadot-evm frontier · Weak Cryptography
Affects polkadot-evm frontierSource CVE Database V5
Not known to be exploited · CVSS 9.9 Critical.
Data as of 25 Oct 2026, 19:02 UTC
- EPSS
- 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 27% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:H/SA:NExploitation evidence
Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 28 Jul 2025
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors
A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 2026-10-25.
What to do
AI-suggested
1. Immediate Upgrade: Organizations should upgrade polkadot-evm Frontier to versions including or beyond commit 36f70d1 where the vulnerability is patched. 2. Input Validation Audits: Conduct thorough audits of all cryptographic input handling in custom smart contracts or extensions interacting with Curve25519 or Ristretto points to ensure no similar silent acceptance of invalid data occurs. 3. Cryptographic Library Review: Verify that all cryptographic libraries and dependencies used in the blockchain stack are up to date and correctly implement validation checks for elliptic curve points. 4. Monitoring and Anomaly Detection: Implement blockchain transaction monitoring to detect anomalous cryptographic operations or unexpected state changes that could indicate exploitation attempts. 5. Incident Response Preparedness: Develop and test incident response plans specific to blockchain compromise scenarios, including rollback or state correction mechanisms. 6. Vendor Communication: Engage with polkadot-evm maintainers and community to stay informed about any emerging exploits or patches related to this vulnerability. 7. Restrict Exposure: Limit network exposure of nodes running vulnerable versions by applying firewall rules or network segmentation until patches are applied.
Description
Polkadot Frontier is an Ethereum and EVM compatibility layer for Polkadot and Substrate. In versions prior to commit 36f70d1, the Curve25519Add and Curve25519ScalarMul precompiles incorrectly handle invalid Ristretto point representations. Instead of returning an error, they silently treat invalid input bytes as the Ristretto identity element, leading to potentially incorrect cryptographic results. This is fixed in commit 36f70d1.
References
- github.com/polkadot-evm/frontier/security/advisories/GHSA-v4q3-23rh-w5mw (opens in a new tab)
- github.com/polkadot-evm/frontier/pull/1720/commits/8ed6053fb868495477ba2409f7e64f439df76f96 (opens in a new tab)
- github.com/polkadot-evm/frontier/commit/36f70d1defcaeaed5a453015f6c98c21bb5b121b (opens in a new tab)
- dotpal.io/assets/files/frontier-srlabs-2505-718c3bfa5df9fed1862fed05de506859.pdf (opens in a new tab)