Zebra before 6.0.0 contains a denial of service vulnerability that allows unauthenticated peers to stall Tokio workers by submitting mempool transactions requiring expensive synchronous script verification. Attackers can send non-standard high-sigop P2SH transactions that reach CachedFfiTransaction::is_valid() before standardness checks, saturating the verifier buffer and rendering the node unresponsive.
The product does not properly control situations in which an adversary can cause the product to consume or produce excessive resources without requiring the adversary to invest equivalent work or otherwise prove authorization, i.e., the adversary’s influence is “asymmetric.”