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Fencer Intel
medium 6.5

CVE-2021-31876 json

Bitcoin Core 0.12.0 through 0.21.1 does not properly implement the replacement policy specified in BIP125, which makes it easier for attack…

published 5y ago modified 4mo ago also EUVD-2021-18751

cvss
6.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
1.6%
EPSS 1.6% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 76%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Bitcoin Core 0.12.0 through 0.21.1 does not properly implement the replacement policy specified in BIP125, which makes it easier for attackers to trigger a loss of funds, or a denial of service attack against downstream projects such as Lightning network nodes. An unconfirmed child transaction with nSequence = 0xff_ff_ff_ff, spending an unconfirmed parent with nSequence <= 0xff_ff_ff_fd, should be replaceable because there is inherited signaling by the child transaction. However, the actual PreChecks implementation does not enforce this. Instead, mempool rejects the replacement attempt of the unconfirmed child transaction.

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Exploit prediction

1.61% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 76% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 6.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:L
NVD 2.0 6.4 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:P

Classification

Weakness

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.