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CVE-2025-47285: Vyper's `concat()` builtin may elide side-effects for zero-length arguments

May 16, 2025

concat() may skip evaluation of side effects when the length of an argument is zero. this is due to a fastpath in the implementation which skips evaluation of argument expressions when their length is zero: https://github.com/vyperlang/vyper/blob/68b68c4b30c5ef2f312b4674676170b8a6eaa316/vyper/builtins/functions.py#L560-L562

in practice, it would be very unusual in user code to construct zero-length bytestrings using an expression with side-effects, since zero-length bytestrings are typically constructed with the empty literal b""; the only way to construct an empty bytestring which has side effects would be with the ternary operator introduced in v0.3.8, e.g. b"" if self.do_some_side_effect() else b"".

the following example demonstrates how the issue would look in user code

counter: public(uint256)

@external
def test() -> Bytes[256]:
a: Bytes[256] = concat(b"" if self.sideeffect() else b"", b"aaaa")
return a

def sideeffect() -> bool:
self.counter += 1
return True

the severity assigned is low, since, as mentioned, this would be a very unusual pattern in user-code.

References

  • github.com/advisories/GHSA-qhr6-mgqr-mchm
  • github.com/vyperlang/vyper
  • github.com/vyperlang/vyper/blob/68b68c4b30c5ef2f312b4674676170b8a6eaa316/vyper/builtins/functions.py
  • github.com/vyperlang/vyper/pull/4644
  • github.com/vyperlang/vyper/security/advisories/GHSA-qhr6-mgqr-mchm
  • nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-47285

Code Behaviors & Features

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Affected versions

All versions up to 0.4.2rc1

Solution

Unfortunately, there is no solution available yet.

Weakness

  • CWE-691: Insufficient Control Flow Management

Source file

pypi/vyper/CVE-2025-47285.yml

Spotted a mistake? Edit the file on GitLab.

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