Zcash fixes critical vulnerability: previously threatened the security of over 25,000 ZEC, worth approximately 6.5 million dollars

The privacy coin Zcash recently disclosed and fixed a critical security vulnerability that could have been exploited by malicious miners to transfer over 25,000 ZEC (approximately 6.5 million USD) from the deprecated Sprout privacy pool. Security researcher Alex "Scalar" Sol disclosed on March 23 that the vulnerability stemmed from the zcashd node skipping proof verification when processing transactions involving the Sprout pool.

The official statement indicated that the vulnerability had existed since July 2020 but had not been actively exploited, and user funds remained safe at all times. The development team has released version 6.12.0 to complete the fix, and mainstream mining pools have completed the upgrade deployment within a few days. Additionally, the unaffected Zebra full node implementation has the capability to trigger a chain fork, providing extra protection in the event of exploitation.

It was disclosed that although the Sprout pool closed to new deposits in November 2020, approximately 25,424 ZEC remained untransferred. Even if the vulnerability were exploited, Zcash's "turnstile" mechanism would prevent inflationary issuance, ensuring that the total supply would not be breached. This vulnerability was discovered with the assistance of AI, and the researcher will receive a total bounty of 200 ZEC (approximately 51,000 USD). It is worth noting that this is not the first time Zcash has encountered a significant vulnerability; as early as 2019, it had fixed a serious flaw that could lead to unlimited issuance.