8.2 High

Hydra is a layer-two scalability solution for Cardano.

CVE-2026-62162

Hydra is a layer-two scalability solution for Cardano. Prior to 2.1.0, the Claim branch in hydra-plutus/validators/deposit.ak checks only that datum.headid matches the attacker-controlled redeemer.currencySymbol and that the transaction is valid before the deposit deadline. It neither requires spending the Head state-token UTxO in the same transaction nor constrains outputs. After a deposit made through POST /commit is confirmed, any third party able to build a Cardano transaction can observe and consume the pending deposit UTxO before its deadline and redirect the assets to an arbitrary address. A standalone deposit spend invokes no Head validator, bypassing its safety checks; historical head-ID binding and the Aiken rewrite retained this missing invariant. The default deadline is three times depositPeriod, so the described attack applies to pending deposits before that deadline. This issue is fixed in version 2.1.0.

Assessment

CVSS: 8.2 (v4.0)
Severity: High
Known exploited: Not listed in CISA KEV
Exploit availability: Nothing found in Exploit-DB, Metasploit, Nuclei or public PoC repositories
Published: 30 October 2026
Last updated: 30 October 2026
Affected: cardano-scaling
Assigner: GitHub_M

CVSS vectorCVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:H/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

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