VulnerabilityPublished 2 Jul 2026

CVE-2026-52829: Zebra network · Zebra Address Book Aborted by IPv4-Mapped Mempool Misbehavior Update

Affects zebra-networkSource GCVE Database

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Authoritative record:CVE-2026-52829· High 7.5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 7.5 High : upgrade to 7.0.0 soon.

Data as of 30 Oct 2026, 11:52 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

7.5High

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.6% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 49% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 7.0.0, 4.5.0

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: None
Availability: High

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed 'remotely exploitable' and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: High: There is total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the impacted component; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 18 Aug 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponized: 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 30 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponized: A Metasploit exploit module or Exploit-DB entry exists (Metasploit scanner modules do not count), or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Upgrade zebra-network to 7.0.0; zebrad to 4.5.0.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
crates.iozebra-network	Affected <7.0.0	Fixed in 7.0.0
crates.iozebrad	Affected <4.5.0	Fixed in 4.5.0

Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.

AI-suggested

A patch is available in Zebra version 4.5.0 that fixes the address normalization mismatch by canonicalizing addresses in the mempool misbehavior update path. Users should upgrade to Zebra 4.5.0 or later to remediate this issue. As a workaround, configuring the node to listen on an IPv4-only address (e.g., 0.0.0.0:8233) or setting the Linux kernel parameter net.ipv6.bindv6only=1 will prevent the vulnerability by avoiding IPv4-mapped IPv6 socket addresses. These workarounds mitigate the issue until the official patch can be applied.

Description

ZEBRA is a Zcash node written entirely in Rust. Prior to 4.5.0, an unauthenticated IPv4 peer can deterministically terminate a synced Zebra node using the default Linux dual-stack listener configuration. The handshake path canonicalized an IPv4-mapped IPv6 PeerSocketAddr such as ::ffff:127.0.0.1 to plain IPv4 before storing it through MetaAddr::new_connected, but the mempool misbehavior path forwarded the raw transient address to MetaAddrChange::UpdateMisbehavior. In zebra-network/src/meta_addr.rs, apply_to_meta_addr then compared the canonical address-book entry with the raw update address and reached its unexpected address mismatch assertion. After the misbehavior batch flush, panic equals abort terminated zebrad; the peer only needed to complete a P2P handshake and advertise an invalid mempool transaction. This issue is fixed in version 4.5.0.

Impact

A remote unauthenticated attacker can cause a deterministic crash of any synced Zebra node running the default Linux dual-stack configuration by sending a single invalid mempool transaction advertisement over IPv4. This results in a process abort due to an assertion failure, causing persistent downtime as the crash can be repeated after each restart. The attack requires no special privileges, mining capability, RPC access, or funds. The default production configuration on Linux is vulnerable, making this a high-impact denial-of-service vulnerability.

Summary

CVE-2026-52829 affects Zebra network nodes running zebrad up to and including v4.4.1 on Linux hosts with default dual-stack IPv6/IPv4 socket configuration (net.ipv6.bindv6only=0). The vulnerability is due to an address normalization mismatch: the handshake path canonicalizes IPv4-mapped IPv6 addresses to plain IPv4 before storing peers in the address book, while the mempool misbehavior path forwards the raw IPv4-mapped IPv6 address without canonicalization. This mismatch triggers an assertion failure in the address book when updating misbehavior penalties, causing the process to abort. An attacker can exploit this by completing a P2P handshake over IPv4 and advertising an invalid mempool transaction, leading to a crash after a 30-second misbehavior batch flush. The issue is fixed in Zebra 4.5.0 by canonicalizing addresses in the misbehavior update path. Workarounds include binding to an IPv4-only address or setting net.ipv6.bindv6only=1 on Linux to prevent dual-stack acceptance.

CWE-617Reachable Assertion (opens in a new tab)
Base weakness
The product contains an assert() or similar statement that can be triggered by an attacker, which leads to an application exit or other behavior that is more severe than necessary.
Implementation
If the assertion statement is required (e.g., for security or reliability), change the invoking code to avoid the conditions that trigger the assertion.
Implementation
Consider changing the assertion to some other less "fatal" error. This might not be easy to implement, since other code may be needed to handle the error.
Implementation
Make sensitive open/close operations non-reachable from directly user-controlled data (e.g. open/close resources)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).
CWE-843Access of Resource Using Incompatible Type (Type Confusion) (opens in a new tab)
Base weakness
The product allocates or initializes a resource such as a pointer, object, or variable using one type, but it later accesses that resource using a type that is incompatible with the original type.

References

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 19 Aug 2026, 11:13 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-617, CWE-843

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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