Description
ZEBRA is a Zcash node written entirely in Rust. Prior to 4.5.0, an unauthenticated P2P peer can cause the mempool download pipeline to retain transactions after verification reaches the outer RATE_LIMIT_DELAY timeout. In zebrad/src/components/mempool/downloads.rs, Downloads::poll_next removed cancel_handles entries after success and ordinary verification errors, but tokio::time::error::Elapsed did not carry the UnminedTxId needed to remove the timed-out entry. Each retained cancel_handles entry could hold a full Gossip::Tx(UnminedTx), while normal mined-transaction cleanup could not match attacker transactions and no periodic garbage collection or count cap existed. Sustained traffic therefore caused monotonic memory growth until swap pressure degraded the node or the operating system terminated the zebrad process for exhausting memory. This issue is fixed in version 4.5.0.
Published: 2026-08-18
Score: 5.3 Medium
EPSS: n/a
KEV: No
Impact: n/a
Action: n/a
AI Analysis

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Remediation

No vendor fix or workaround currently provided.

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Tracking

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Advisories
Source ID Title
Github GHSA Github GHSA GHSA-65jj-fmw8-468q zebrad has unbounded memory leak in mempool download pipeline via timeout path cancel_handles retention
History

Tue, 18 Aug 2026 22:30:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
First Time appeared Zcashfoundation
Zcashfoundation zebra
Vendors & Products Zcashfoundation
Zcashfoundation zebra

Tue, 18 Aug 2026 19:30:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description ZEBRA is a Zcash node written entirely in Rust. Prior to 4.5.0, an unauthenticated P2P peer can cause the mempool download pipeline to retain transactions after verification reaches the outer RATE_LIMIT_DELAY timeout. In zebrad/src/components/mempool/downloads.rs, Downloads::poll_next removed cancel_handles entries after success and ordinary verification errors, but tokio::time::error::Elapsed did not carry the UnminedTxId needed to remove the timed-out entry. Each retained cancel_handles entry could hold a full Gossip::Tx(UnminedTx), while normal mined-transaction cleanup could not match attacker transactions and no periodic garbage collection or count cap existed. Sustained traffic therefore caused monotonic memory growth until swap pressure degraded the node or the operating system terminated the zebrad process for exhausting memory. This issue is fixed in version 4.5.0.
Title ZEBRA: Unbounded memory leak in mempool download pipeline via timeout path cancel_handles retention
Weaknesses CWE-401
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 5.3, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L'}


Subscriptions

Zcashfoundation Zebra
cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: GitHub_M

Published:

Updated: 2026-08-18T19:19:56.546Z

Reserved: 2026-06-08T14:00:43.572Z

Link: CVE-2026-52734

cve-icon Vulnrichment

No data.

cve-icon NVD

Status : Received

Published: 2026-08-18T20:17:17.080

Modified: 2026-08-18T20:17:17.080

Link: CVE-2026-52734

cve-icon Redhat

No data.

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

Updated: 2026-08-18T22:15:04Z

Weaknesses