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Medium

Vyper's nonpayable default functions are sometimes payable

  • Disclosed: 19.05.2023
  • Updated: 11.10.2026 12:19

Impact

in contracts with at least one regular nonpayable function, due to the callvalue check being inside of the selector section, it is possible to send funds to the default function by using less than 4 bytes of calldata, even if the default function is marked nonpayable. this applies to contracts compiled with vyper<=0.3.7.

vyper
# @version 0.3.7

# implicitly nonpayable
@external
def foo() -> uint256:
    return 1

# implicitly nonpayable
@external
def __default__():
    # could receive ether here
    pass

Patches

this was fixed by the removal of the global calldatasize check in https://github.com/vyperlang/vyper/commit/02339dfda0f3caabad142060d511d10bfe93c520.

Workarounds

don't use nonpayable default functions

Affected software

Click a technology to see all vulnerabilities affecting it.

PlatformPackageVulnerable versionsFixed in
Python (PyPI) vyper < 0.3.8 0.3.8

References

CVSS score 3.7/10
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
Weakness (CWE)
CWE-670
Platform
Python (PyPI)
Package
vyper
Disclosed
19.05.2023
Updated
11.10.2026 12:19

Sources and licenses

OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - PYSEC-2023-80 - PyPA Advisory Database; CC BY 4.0

OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - GHSA-vxmm-cwh2-q762 - CC BY 4.0

Vulnerability history: vyper

All published vulnerabilities of this package (Python (PyPI)), newest first. Shows whether this is a one-off slip or a package that needs watching.

All (47) in the archive
Total entries
47
First → latest
03.2020 10.2026
Without a fix
5
Exploited in attacks
0

Severity breakdown

  • Critical 3
  • High 14
  • Medium 20
  • Low 10

Disclosures per year

Severity:
  1. Vyper negative array index bounds checks
    Critical · 9.8 CVE-2024-24563 < 0.4.0 0.4.0
  2. Vyper's bounds check on built-in `slice()` function can be overflowed
    Critical · 9.8 CVE-2024-24561 < 0.4.0 0.4.0
  3. concat built-in can corrupt memory in vyper
    High · 7.3 CVE-2024-22419 >= 0.3.0, < 0.4.0 0.4.0
  4. incorrect storage layout for contracts containing large arrays
    High · 7.5 CVE-2023-46247 < 0.3.8 0.3.8
  5. Vyper vulnerable to memory corruption in certain builtins utilizing `msize`
    High · 8.1 CVE-2023-42443 >= 0.3.4, < 0.3.10 0.3.10
  6. Vyper has incorrectly allocated named re-entrancy locks
    Critical · 8.7 CVE-2023-39363 >= 0.2.15, < 0.3.1 0.3.1
  7. Vyper's nonpayable default functions are sometimes payable this entry
    Medium · 3.7 CVE-2023-32675 < 0.3.8 0.3.8
  8. Vyper vulnerable to incorrect ordering of arguments for kwargs passed to internal calls
    High · 7.5 CVE-2023-32059 < 0.3.8 0.3.8
  9. Vyper vulnerable to integer overflow in loop
    High · 7.5 CVE-2023-32058 < 0.3.8 0.3.8
  10. Vyper vulnerable to OOB DynArray access when array is on both LHS and RHS of an assignment
    High · 7.5 CVE-2023-31146 < 0.3.8 0.3.8
  11. vyper vulnerable to storage allocator overflow
    High · 7.5 CVE-2023-30837 < 0.3.8 0.3.8
  12. Incorrect success value returned in vyper
    High · 7.5 CVE-2023-30629 >= 0.3.1, < 0.3.8 0.3.8
  13. Multiple evaluation of contract address in call in vyper
    High · 7.5 CVE-2022-29255 < 0.3.4 0.3.4
  14. Vyper is a pythonic Smart Contract Language for the ethereum virtual machine. In affected versions, the return of `<iface>.returns_int128()` is not validated to fall within the bounds of `int128`. Thi
    High · 8.8 CVE-2022-24845 < 0.3.2 0.3.2
  15. Buffer Overflow in vyper
    High · 7.1 CVE-2022-24788 < 0.3.2 0.3.2
  16. Incorrect Comparison in Vyper
    High · 7.5 CVE-2022-24787 < 0.3.2 0.3.2
  17. Memory corruption when returning a literal struct with a private call inside of it
    High · 7.5 CVE-2021-41121 < 0.3.0 0.3.0
  18. Storage corruption due to variables overwritten by re-entrancy locks
    High ghsa-7f92-rr6w-cq64 >= 0.2.13, < 0.2.15 0.2.15

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