libp2p is a networking stack and library modularized out of The IPFS Project, and bundled separately for other tools to use. In go-libp2p, by using signed peer records a malicious actor can store an arbitrary amount of data in a remote node’s memory. This memory does not get garbage collected and so the victim can run out of memory and crash. If users of go-libp2p in production are not monitoring memory consumption over time, it could be a silent attack i.e. the attacker could bring down nodes over a period of time (how long depends on the node resources i.e. a go-libp2p node on a virtual server with 4 gb of memory takes about 90 sec to bring down; on a larger server, it might take a bit longer.) This issue was patched in version 0.27.4.
The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource.
| Name | Vendor | Start Version | End Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Libp2p | Protocol | * | 0.27.4 (excluding) |
Mitigation of resource exhaustion attacks requires that the target system either:
The first of these solutions is an issue in itself though, since it may allow attackers to prevent the use of the system by a particular valid user. If the attacker impersonates the valid user, they may be able to prevent the user from accessing the server in question.
The second solution is simply difficult to effectively institute – and even when properly done, it does not provide a full solution. It simply makes the attack require more resources on the part of the attacker.