Vulnerability · Published Sep 28, 2026 · Assigned by GitHub_M
CVE-2026-48100Payy: agg_agg trailing message slots are unconstrained and allow forged burn messages
High 8.7
In plain English
A high-severity security flaw in payy from polybase. Proof-of-concept exploit code is public. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.2% (higher than 8% of all known vulnerabilities).
Official description
Payy is an Ethereum L2 zk-rollup for privacy preserving and regulatory compliant transactions. Prior to version 1.3.0, agg_agg forwards the compacted message stream from its inner proofs into a public messages: [Field; 1000] array, but it never checks that the unused tail of the outer array is zero. A registered prover can build a valid agg_final proof for an approved rollup block while inserting an extra burn message after the real messages. RollupV1.verifyRollup() then parses that public input as a normal burn and transfers USDC from the rollup contract to the attacker. This is a severe circuit soundness failure: the proof system accepts a public statement whose messages array is not fully derived from the verified inner proofs. On the current deployment, verifyRollup() is restricted to the existing allowlisted prover, so a fresh public caller cannot submit the invalid proof directly. That gate limits who can reach L1 today; it does not make the circuit statement sound. The issue becomes permissionless under the prover model described in the Payy whitepaper. Section 3.3.2 states: "To join as a prover, the prover is required to submit a small stake", and Section 3.3.1 states that if a prover fails to submit, "other nodes can submit the block proof instead." In that model, an attacker only needs to become a registered prover and use public validator approval data for an already approved block. This issue has been patched in version 1.3.0.
Affected products (as reported)
Weakness: CWE-349 · Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
References
- https://github.com/polybase/payy/security/advisories/GHSA-fhxc-63vg-9gwr x_refsource_CONFIRM