CVE-2022-35961
ECDSA signature malleability in OpenZeppelin Contracts
OpenZeppelin Contracts is a library for secure smart contract development. The functions ECDSA.recover and ECDSA.tryRecover are vulnerable to a kind of signature malleability due to accepting EIP-2098 compact signatures in addition to the traditional 65 byte signature format. This is only an issue for the functions that take a single bytes argument, and not the functions that take r, v, s or r, vs as separate arguments. The potentially affected contracts are those that implement signature reuse or replay protection by marking the signature itself as used rather than the signed message or a nonce included in it. A user may take a signature that has already been submitted, submit it again in a different form, and bypass this protection. The issue has been patched in 4.7.3.
Attack profile
How easy it is to exploit
- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- High
- Privileges needed
- Low
- User interaction
- Required
What an attacker can affect
- Confidentiality
- High
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- Low
Exploit likelihood
What each source reports
CVE List Score used
ECDSA signature malleability in OpenZeppelin Contracts
OpenZeppelin Contracts is a library for secure smart contract development. The functions ECDSA.recover and ECDSA.tryRecover are vulnerable to a kind of signature malleability due to accepting EIP-2098 compact signatures in addition to the traditional 65 byte signature format. This is only an issue for the functions that take a single bytes argument, and not the functions that take r, v, s or r, vs as separate arguments. The potentially affected contracts are those that implement signature reuse or replay protection by marking the signature itself as used rather than the signed message or a nonce included in it. A user may take a signature that has already been submitted, submit it again in a different form, and bypass this protection. The issue has been patched in 4.7.3.
- Record
CVE-2022-35961- CVSS 3.1
- 7.9 High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:L - Weakness
- CWE-354
- Updated
- 2026-11-02
EUVDEUVD-2022-6478
OpenZeppelin Contracts is a library for secure smart contract development. The functions ECDSA.recover and ECDSA.tryRecover are vulnerable to a kind of signature malleability due to accepting EIP-2098 compact signatures in addition to the traditional 65 byte signature format. This is only an issue for the functions that take a single bytes argument, and not the functions that take r, v, s or r, vs as separate arguments. The potentially affected contracts are those that implement signature reuse or replay protection by marking the signature itself as used rather than the signed message or a nonce included in it. A user may take a signature that has already been submitted, submit it again in a different form, and bypass this protection. The issue has been patched in 4.7.3.
- Record
EUVD-2022-6478- CVSS 3.1
- 7.9 High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:L - Updated
- 2026-11-02
GitHub AdvisoriesGHSA-4h98-2769-gh6h
OpenZeppelin Contracts vulnerable to ECDSA signature malleability
Impact
The functions ECDSA.recover and ECDSA.tryRecover are vulnerable to a kind of signature malleability due to accepting EIP-2098 compact signatures in addition to the traditional 65 byte signature format. This is only an issue for the functions that take a single bytes argument, and not the functions that take r, v, s or r, vs as separate arguments.
The potentially affected contracts are those that implement signature reuse or replay protection by marking the signature itself as used rather than the signed message or a nonce included in it. A user may take a signature that has already been submitted, submit it again in a different form, and bypass this protection.
Patches
The issue has been patched in 4.7.3.
For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, or need assistance deploying a fix, email us at [email protected].
- Record
GHSA-4h98-2769-gh6h- CVSS 3.1
- 7.9 High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:L - Weakness
- CWE-354
- Updated
- 2026-11-02
NVD
OpenZeppelin Contracts is a library for secure smart contract development. The functions ECDSA.recover and ECDSA.tryRecover are vulnerable to a kind of signature malleability due to accepting EIP-2098 compact signatures in addition to the traditional 65 byte signature format. This is only an issue for the functions that take a single bytes argument, and not the functions that take r, v, s or r, vs as separate arguments. The potentially affected contracts are those that implement signature reuse or replay protection by marking the signature itself as used rather than the signed message or a nonce included in it. A user may take a signature that has already been submitted, submit it again in a different form, and bypass this protection. The issue has been patched in 4.7.3.
- Record
CVE-2022-35961- CVSS 3.1
- 7.9 High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:L - CVSS 3.1
- 6.5 Medium
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N - Weakness
- CWE-354
- Updated
- 2026-11-02
OSV
ECDSA signature malleability in OpenZeppelin Contracts
OpenZeppelin Contracts is a library for secure smart contract development. The functions ECDSA.recover and ECDSA.tryRecover are vulnerable to a kind of signature malleability due to accepting EIP-2098 compact signatures in addition to the traditional 65 byte signature format. This is only an issue for the functions that take a single bytes argument, and not the functions that take r, v, s or r, vs as separate arguments. The potentially affected contracts are those that implement signature reuse or replay protection by marking the signature itself as used rather than the signed message or a nonce included in it. A user may take a signature that has already been submitted, submit it again in a different form, and bypass this protection. The issue has been patched in 4.7.3.
- Record
CVE-2022-35961- CVSS 3.1
- 7.9 High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:L - Weakness
- CWE-354
- Updated
- 2026-11-02
OSVGHSA-4h98-2769-gh6h
OpenZeppelin Contracts vulnerable to ECDSA signature malleability
Impact
The functions ECDSA.recover and ECDSA.tryRecover are vulnerable to a kind of signature malleability due to accepting EIP-2098 compact signatures in addition to the traditional 65 byte signature format. This is only an issue for the functions that take a single bytes argument, and not the functions that take r, v, s or r, vs as separate arguments.
The potentially affected contracts are those that implement signature reuse or replay protection by marking the signature itself as used rather than the signed message or a nonce included in it. A user may take a signature that has already been submitted, submit it again in a different form, and bypass this protection.
Patches
The issue has been patched in 4.7.3.
For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, or need assistance deploying a fix, email us at [email protected].
- Record
GHSA-4h98-2769-gh6h- CVSS 3.1
- 7.9 High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:L - Weakness
- CWE-354
- Updated
- 2026-11-02
Affected products
Affected packages
| Package | Affected | Fixed |
|---|---|---|
@openzeppelin/contractsnpm |
4.1.0 up to 4.7.3 | 4.7.3 |
@openzeppelin/contracts-upgradeablenpm |
4.1.0 up to 4.7.3 | 4.7.3 |
History
| Recorded | Changed | Sources |
|---|---|---|
| first indexed | CVE List, EUVD, GitHub Advisories, NVD, OSV |
Dates are when Every CVE recorded each change. Upstream dates may differ.
In short
CVE-2022-35961 is a high vulnerability (CVSS 7.9) in Openzeppelin Contracts, published August 14, 2022. No source lists public exploit code. EPSS puts the chance of exploitation in the next 30 days at 0.45%, the 39th percentile. Fixed in @openzeppelin/contracts 4.7.3.
References
github.com/OpenZeppelin/openzeppelin-contracts/security/advisories/GHSA-4h98-2769-gh6h
nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-35961