GHSA-6jp4-8v48-cc5v - Electrum: Malicious server can replace a just-broadcast tx and try to trick user into RBF-ing it
### Summary
The main Electrum server the client connects to is trusted with mempool ("unconfirmed") transactions. This is documented [design](https://electrum.readthedocs.io/en/latest/faq.html#does-electrum-trust-servers). [0]
However now someone figured out a way to practically exploit it:
- when the client broadcasts a new tx1, a malicious server can swallow it,
- and update the client's history with a conflicting (invalid) tx2 that replaces the outputs with the attacker's output address.
- Tx2 has invalid signatures, but this is not checked (due to light client design).
- The wallet will display tx2 as an unconfirmed transaction - tx1 will not be displayed.
- If the client then manually RBF fee-bumps tx2, the client will sign it with a higher fee, and hence pay the attacker.
### Fixes
Commit 90fe30822 contains the fix [1], included in version 4.8.3.
The client now verifies the signatures of `wallet.is_mine` inputs for mempool txs (before adding them to its local history).
Users should upgrade (and regularly do so in any case).
As a workaround, without upgrading, when signing any transaction, for bumping the fee or not, they should verify the output addresses and amounts are as expected.
Clients that connect to servers they trust (e.g. run their own) are not affected.
### Remarks
- some servers are performing this attack in the wild
- electrum received two user-reports of this. user1 noticed after broadcasting tx1 the wallet history contained a different tx. user2 bumped the fee of tx2 and lost money.
- user1 reported tx1 was not propagated over the bitcoin p2p, so the server held it
- both reported the attacker's output address in tx2 was grinded to match the last four chars of the legit address from tx1
- based on user2's report, the server constructed a tx2 with zero fee (presumably in hope of the user bumping its fee)
- even with the fix, we still only validate "is_mine" inputs (i.e. paying from addresses that the wallet owns). So e.g. "incoming" txs
CRITICAL
Severity & confidence
Source severitycritical
Platform severitycritical
Confidencehigh
Exploitationunknown
CVSS7.5
Affected
Vendorselectrum
Productselectrum
Reporting sources (2)
GitHub Security Advisories
NIST NVD - National Vulnerability Database
Timeline & provenance
Published2026-10-28T21:23:44
Last updated2026-10-30T22:59:15
Ingested2026-10-28T21:27:22
FreshnessNEAR-REAL-TIME
Threat typeadvisory
Recommended action
Review the advisory and upgrade affected packages to the first patched version.
Next steps
- Identify affected systems in your environment.
- Apply the vendor patch or mitigation guidance.
- Review logs for indicators described in the advisory.
- Follow the affected vendor/product to track updates.
Confidence explanation
Reported by a government or cert-grade source (CISA, NCSC, NVD, ENISA, MSRC).
Source type: vendor ยท Original: GitHub Security Advisories