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Moderate 64 Bitcoin

multi: enforce strict TLV length checks

Public commit record

What the developer wrote

Authored by Erick Cestari

78/100 · Adequate
multi: enforce strict TLV length checks

This commit improves TLV decoding safety and consistency across multiple
packages by enforcing fixed-length requirements and adding unit tests to
prevent malformed TLV records from being accepted.

Changes include:

- lnwire:
* Enforce 8-byte length in Fee TLV decoder.
* Enforce PubNonceSize in Musig2Nonce TLV decoder.
* Enforce 8-byte length in ShortChannelID TLV decoder.
* Added roundtrip and invalid length tests for Fee, Musig2Nonce,
and ShortChannelID records.

- routing/route:
* Enforce Vertex TLV length (33 bytes).
* Added encode/decode and invalid length tests for Vertex.

- tlv:
* Enforce correct length in DBytes33 decoder (33 bytes).
* Added tests ensuring all fixed-size primitive decoders reject
incorrect TLV lengths.

By strictly validating TLV lengths, we prevent malformed or corrupted
TLV records from being silently accepted, improving protocol safety.
✓ Descriptive subject✓ Names a concrete action or component✓ Provides detailed explanatory context✓ Mentions testing or verification
The short version

What changed, and why it matters

This commit tightens validation for a message-encoding format (TLV) used inside the Lightning Network daemon lnd. Previously, several decoders would accept a record whose declared length did not match the fixed size they expected, which could let malformed or corrupted data be silently processed. The patch now rejects wrong-length records and adds tests to prove it. It is a defensive hardening change rather than a fix for a publicly disclosed exploit.

Recommended action

Treat as a security-hardening fix and include in the next maintenance release. Review other custom TLV decoders in the codebase for the same pattern (ignoring the length parameter) and apply consistent length validation. Run the new unit tests and consider fuzzing TLV streams with mismatched lengths.

Security signals we found

01

TLV length mismatch accepted by fixed-size decoders before patch

02

Malformed/corrupted TLV records could be silently processed

03

Patch adds explicit length equality checks in multiple decoders

04

New unit tests verify rejection of incorrect TLV lengths

05

Cross-package impact: lnwire, routing/route, tlv

Risk score

Why this scored 64/100

Our methodology →
Potential impact 18/30
Exploitability 12/25
Stealth signal 10/15
Affected reach 12/15
Confidence 8/10
Evidence quality 4/5
Human-validated context

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