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Medium

vyper performs double eval of the slice start/length args in certain cases

  • Disclosed: 25.04.2024
  • Updated: 11.10.2026 12:20

Summary

Using the slice builtin can result in a double eval vulnerability when the buffer argument is either msg.data, self.code or <address>.code and either the start or length arguments have side-effects.

A contract search was performed and no vulnerable contracts were found in production. Having side-effects in the start and length patterns is also an unusual pattern which is not that likely to show up in user code. It is also much harder (but not impossible!) to trigger the bug since 0.3.4 since the unique symbol fence was introduced (https://github.com/vyperlang/vyper/pull/2914).

Details

It can be seen that the _build_adhoc_slice_node function of the slice builtin doesn't cache the mentioned arguments to the stack: https://github.com/vyperlang/vyper/blob/4595938734d9988f8e46e8df38049ae0559abedb/vyper/builtins/functions.py#L244

As such, they can be evaluated multiple times (instead of retrieving the value from the stack).

PoC

with Vyper version 0.3.3+commit.48e326f the call to foo passes the asserts:

vyper
l: DynArray[uint256, 10]

@external
def foo(cs: String[64]) -> uint256:
    for i in range(10):
        self.l.append(1)
    assert len(self.l) == 10
    s: Bytes[64] = b""
    s = slice(msg.data, self.l.pop(), 3)
    assert len(self.l) == 10 - 2
    return len(self.l)

Patches

Patched in https://github.com/vyperlang/vyper/pull/3976.

Impact

No vulnerable production contracts were found.

Affected software

Click a technology to see all vulnerabilities affecting it.

PlatformPackageVulnerable versionsFixed in
Python (PyPI) vyper < 0.4.0 0.4.0

References

CVSS score 5.3/10
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
Weakness (CWE)
CWE-20
Platform
Python (PyPI)
Package
vyper
Disclosed
25.04.2024
Updated
11.10.2026 12:20

Sources and licenses

OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - PYSEC-2024-207 - PyPA Advisory Database; CC BY 4.0

OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - GHSA-r56x-j438-vw5m - 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 performs double eval of the slice start/length args in certain cases this entry
    Medium · 5.3 CVE-2024-32646 < 0.4.0 0.4.0
  2. Vyper negative array index bounds checks
    Critical · 9.8 CVE-2024-24563 < 0.4.0 0.4.0
  3. Vyper's bounds check on built-in `slice()` function can be overflowed
    Critical · 9.8 CVE-2024-24561 < 0.4.0 0.4.0
  4. concat built-in can corrupt memory in vyper
    High · 7.3 CVE-2024-22419 >= 0.3.0, < 0.4.0 0.4.0
  5. incorrect storage layout for contracts containing large arrays
    High · 7.5 CVE-2023-46247 < 0.3.8 0.3.8
  6. 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
  7. Vyper has incorrectly allocated named re-entrancy locks
    Critical · 8.7 CVE-2023-39363 >= 0.2.15, < 0.3.1 0.3.1
  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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