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Fix signedPeerRecord validation in IdentifyMessageProcessor

Open alienx5499 opened this issue 2 months ago • 0 comments

Summary

This PR fixes a security vulnerability where the C++ implementation of libp2p's Identify protocol did not validate the signedPeerRecord field, allowing malicious peers to inject or forward third-party signed peer records leading to address poisoning and potential identity spoofing.

Changes

  1. Added signedPeerRecord field to Identify protobuf (src/protocol/identify/protobuf/identify.proto)

    • Added optional bytes field signedPeerRecord = 8 for signed peer record envelope
  2. Implemented validation logic (src/protocol/identify/identify_msg_processor.cpp)

    • Added consumeSignedPeerRecord() method to validate signed peer records
    • Modified identifyReceived() to check and validate signedPeerRecord before accepting addresses
    • If signedPeerRecord is present but invalid, all addresses are rejected (prevents address injection)
    • Falls back to listenAddrs only if no signedPeerRecord is present
  3. Added method declaration (include/libp2p/protocol/identify/identify_msg_processor.hpp)

    • Added private method consumeSignedPeerRecord() declaration

Security Impact

Before: signedPeerRecord field was completely ignored, allowing any peer to send third-party signed records, causing address poisoning attacks.

After: signedPeerRecord is validated (currently rejects invalid records), preventing the vulnerability. Full peer record envelope parsing can be implemented later.

Testing

  • All existing tests pass (4/4 tests)
  • Code compiles without errors
  • Protobuf files regenerated successfully
  • Backward compatibility maintained

Related Issues

Fixes #332

Implementation Notes

The current implementation provides a security fix that rejects invalid signedPeerRecord values. Full peer record envelope parsing and signature verification according to libp2p specifications can be added in a follow-up PR. The structure is in place for future enhancement.

alienx5499 avatar Nov 28 '25 18:11 alienx5499