CVE-2026-59694

Improper Validation of Specified Quantity in Input in ZenHive mpp allows an unauthenticated remote client to inflate the fee-payer's gas cost per payment by a large multiplier, degrading the sponsor's operating margin.

When the mpp Elixir library is configured as fee payer (fee_payer: true), MPP.Tempo.Transaction.cosign_fee_payer/3 re-signs the client-supplied base fields of the 0x76 AASigned envelope verbatim, including the EIP-2930 access list, without validating its length or contents. EIP-2930 access list entries incur intrinsic gas (~2,400 gas per address, plus 1,900 gas per storage key) charged before any opcode executes, regardless of whether the listed addresses are ever touched. A malicious client submits a valid transferWithMemo call alongside a large number of fabricated access-list entries. The server co-signs and broadcasts the transaction. The intended transfer executes normally, but the fee-payer wallet pays a large multiple of the expected gas cost with no corresponding on-chain work.

At the maintainer's default of 137 access-list entries (fitting within Bandit's 10,000-byte per-header-field limit) and 100 Gwei max_fee_per_gas, per-payment gas cost rises from ~51,287 to ~380,087 gas, a 7.4x multiplier. Sustained abuse destroys the sponsor's operating margin on low-cost payments and, over time, drains the fee-payer wallet.

This issue affects mpp: from 0.2.0 before 0.6.0.

Improper Validation of Specified Quantity in Input in ZenHive mpp allows an unauthenticated remote client to inflate the fee-payer's gas cost per payment by a large multiplier, degrading the sponsor's operating margin.

When the mpp Elixir library is configured as fee payer (fee_payer: true), MPP.Tempo.Transaction.cosign_fee_payer/3 re-signs the client-supplied base fields of the 0x76 AASigned envelope verbatim, including the EIP-2930 access list, without validating its length or contents. EIP-2930 access list entries incur intrinsic gas (~2,400 gas per address, plus 1,900 gas per storage key) charged before any opcode executes, regardless of whether the listed addresses are ever touched. A malicious client submits a valid transferWithMemo call alongside a large number of fabricated access-list entries. The server co-signs and broadcasts the transaction. The intended transfer executes normally, but the fee-payer wallet pays a large multiple of the expected gas cost with no corresponding on-chain work.

At the maintainer's default of 137 access-list entries (fitting within Bandit's 10,000-byte per-header-field limit) and 100 Gwei max_fee_per_gas, per-payment gas cost rises from ~51,287 to ~380,087 gas, a 7.4x multiplier. Sustained abuse destroys the sponsor's operating margin on low-cost payments and, over time, drains the fee-payer wallet.

This issue affects mpp: from 0.2.0 before 0.6.0.

Details

When the server acts as the fee_payer, mpp Elixir 0.4.0 copies the client-supplied EIP-2930 access list verbatim into the cosigned fee-payer transaction. In cosign_fee_payer, the server re-signs the raw base_fields (index 5 of the 0x76 AASigned envelope) without inspecting the access list field, which is part of the signed payload.

Access list gas is charged intrinsically — before any opcode executes — regardless of whether the listed addresses are ever touched.

An attacker submits a valid transferWithMemo alongside fabricated address-only access list entries. The server validates calldata and amount but never inspects access_list length. It cosigns and broadcasts a transaction that costs the fee-payer wallet N × 2,400 extra gas per request with no corresponding work performed on-chain.

At the default of 137 entries and 100 Gwei max_fee_per_gas, this inflates the fee-payer cost from the normal ~51,287 gas to ~380,087 gas — a 7.4× multiplier — while staying within Bandit's default 10,000-byte per-header-field limit (verified empirically).

PoC

The PoC is provided below. It is configured to reproduce the attack on Tempo Moderate testnet within a Docker environment. Download the PoC and run:

unzip mpp_elixir_PoC.zip
cd mpp_elixir
docker build -t mpp-elixir-access-list .
docker run --rm mpp-elixir-access-list

There are more details in mpp_elixir/README.md

Impact

A malicious client can force the server to pay ~7.4x the normal transaction fee. This dramatically increases operational costs and completely destroys the profit margin on low-cost items.

Improper Validation of Specified Quantity in Input in ZenHive mpp allows an unauthenticated remote client to inflate the fee-payer's gas cost per payment by a large multiplier, degrading the sponsor's operating margin.

When the mpp Elixir library is configured as fee payer (fee_payer: true), MPP.Tempo.Transaction.cosign_fee_payer/3 re-signs the client-supplied base fields of the 0x76 AASigned envelope verbatim, including the EIP-2930 access list, without validating its length or contents. EIP-2930 access list entries incur intrinsic gas (~2,400 gas per address, plus 1,900 gas per storage key) charged before any opcode executes, regardless of whether the listed addresses are ever touched. A malicious client submits a valid transferWithMemo call alongside a large number of fabricated access-list entries. The server co-signs and broadcasts the transaction. The intended transfer executes normally, but the fee-payer wallet pays a large multiple of the expected gas cost with no corresponding on-chain work.

At the maintainer's default of 137 access-list entries (fitting within Bandit's 10,000-byte per-header-field limit) and 100 Gwei max_fee_per_gas, per-payment gas cost rises from ~51,287 to ~380,087 gas, a 7.4x multiplier. Sustained abuse destroys the sponsor's operating margin on low-cost payments and, over time, drains the fee-payer wallet.

This issue affects mpp: from 0.2.0 before 0.6.0.

Improper Validation of Specified Quantity in Input in ZenHive mpp allows an unauthenticated remote client to inflate the fee-payer's gas cost per payment by a large multiplier, degrading the sponsor's operating margin.

When the mpp Elixir library is configured as fee payer (fee_payer: true), MPP.Tempo.Transaction.cosign_fee_payer/3 re-signs the client-supplied base fields of the 0x76 AASigned envelope verbatim, including the EIP-2930 access list, without validating its length or contents. EIP-2930 access list entries incur intrinsic gas (~2,400 gas per address, plus 1,900 gas per storage key) charged before any opcode executes, regardless of whether the listed addresses are ever touched. A malicious client submits a valid transferWithMemo call alongside a large number of fabricated access-list entries. The server co-signs and broadcasts the transaction. The intended transfer executes normally, but the fee-payer wallet pays a large multiple of the expected gas cost with no corresponding on-chain work.

At the maintainer's default of 137 access-list entries (fitting within Bandit's 10,000-byte per-header-field limit) and 100 Gwei max_fee_per_gas, per-payment gas cost rises from ~51,287 to ~380,087 gas, a 7.4x multiplier. Sustained abuse destroys the sponsor's operating margin on low-cost payments and, over time, drains the fee-payer wallet.

This issue affects mpp: from 0.2.0 before 0.6.0.

Improper Validation of Specified Quantity in Input in ZenHive mpp allows an unauthenticated remote client to inflate the fee-payer's gas cost per payment by a large multiplier, degrading the sponsor's operating margin.

When the mpp Elixir library is configured as fee payer (fee_payer: true), MPP.Tempo.Transaction.cosign_fee_payer/3 re-signs the client-supplied base fields of the 0x76 AASigned envelope verbatim, including the EIP-2930 access list, without validating its length or contents. EIP-2930 access list entries incur intrinsic gas (~2,400 gas per address, plus 1,900 gas per storage key) charged before any opcode executes, regardless of whether the listed addresses are ever touched. A malicious client submits a valid transferWithMemo call alongside a large number of fabricated access-list entries. The server co-signs and broadcasts the transaction. The intended transfer executes normally, but the fee-payer wallet pays a large multiple of the expected gas cost with no corresponding on-chain work.

At the maintainer's default of 137 access-list entries (fitting within Bandit's 10,000-byte per-header-field limit) and 100 Gwei max_fee_per_gas, per-payment gas cost rises from ~51,287 to ~380,087 gas, a 7.4x multiplier. Sustained abuse destroys the sponsor's operating margin on low-cost payments and, over time, drains the fee-payer wallet.

This issue affects mpp: from 0.2.0 before 0.6.0.

Summary

Improper Validation of Specified Quantity in Input in ZenHive mpp allows an unauthenticated remote client to inflate the fee-payer's gas cost per payment by a large multiplier, degrading the sponsor's operating margin.

When the mpp Elixir library is configured as fee payer (fee_payer: true), MPP.Tempo.Transaction.cosign_fee_payer/3 re-signs the client-supplied base fields of the 0x76 AASigned envelope verbatim, including the EIP-2930 access list, without validating its length or contents. EIP-2930 access list entries incur intrinsic gas (~2,400 gas per address, plus 1,900 gas per storage key) charged before any opcode executes, regardless of whether the listed addresses are ever touched. A malicious client submits a valid transferWithMemo call alongside a large number of fabricated access-list entries. The server co-signs and broadcasts the transaction. The intended transfer executes normally, but the fee-payer wallet pays a large multiple of the expected gas cost with no corresponding on-chain work.

At the maintainer's default of 137 access-list entries (fitting within Bandit's 10,000-byte per-header-field limit) and 100 Gwei max_fee_per_gas, per-payment gas cost rises from ~51,287 to ~380,087 gas, a 7.4x multiplier. Sustained abuse destroys the sponsor's operating margin on low-cost payments and, over time, drains the fee-payer wallet.

This issue affects mpp: from 0.2.0 before 0.6.0.

Configurations

The vulnerable code path is only reachable when the MPP.Methods.Tempo method is configured with fee_payer: true (server-side gas sponsorship). Default deployments with fee_payer: false are not affected, since the client pays for gas out of its own wallet.

Details

When the server acts as the fee_payer, mpp Elixir 0.4.0 copies the client-supplied EIP-2930 access list verbatim into the cosigned fee-payer transaction. In cosign_fee_payer, the server re-signs the raw base_fields (index 5 of the 0x76 AASigned envelope) without inspecting the access list field, which is part of the signed payload.

Access list gas is charged intrinsically — before any opcode executes — regardless of whether the listed addresses are ever touched.

An attacker submits a valid transferWithMemo alongside fabricated address-only access list entries. The server validates calldata and amount but never inspects access_list length. It cosigns and broadcasts a transaction that costs the fee-payer wallet N × 2,400 extra gas per request with no corresponding work performed on-chain.

At the default of 137 entries and 100 Gwei max_fee_per_gas, this inflates the fee-payer cost from the normal ~51,287 gas to ~380,087 gas — a 7.4× multiplier — while staying within Bandit's default 10,000-byte per-header-field limit (verified empirically).

PoC

The PoC is provided below. It is configured to reproduce the attack on Tempo Moderate testnet within a Docker environment. Download the PoC and run:

unzip mpp_elixir_PoC.zip
cd mpp_elixir
docker build -t mpp-elixir-access-list .
docker run --rm mpp-elixir-access-list

There are more details in mpp_elixir/README.md

Impact

A malicious client can force the server to pay ~7.4x the normal transaction fee. This dramatically increases operational costs and completely destroys the profit margin on low-cost items.