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OpenAdvisories
Medium · 6.9 CVE-2026-26315 EUVD-2026-8436GHSA-m6j8-rg6r-7mv8GO-2026-4511

Go Ethereum Improperly Validates the ECIES Public Key in RLPx Handshake

Published Feb 19, 2026 · Updated Feb 20, 2026 · Assigned by GitHub_M

Description

go-ethereum (Geth) is a golang execution layer implementation of the Ethereum protocol. Prior to version 1.16.9, through a flaw in the ECIES cryptography implementation, an attacker may be able to extract bits of the p2p node key. The issue is resolved in the v1.16.9 and v1.17.0 releases of Geth. Geth maintainers recommend rotating the node key after applying the upgrade, which can be done by removing the file `<datadir>/geth/nodekey` before starting Geth.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
ethereum go-ethereum < 1.16.9 —

Fixed in Linux distributions

Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
openSUSE Leap 16.0 govulncheck-vulndb 0.0.20260723T184607-160000.1.1 openSUSE-SU-2026:21483-1
openSUSE Leap 15.6 govulncheck-vulndb 0.0.20260226T182644-150000.1.149.1 SUSE-SU-2026:0757-1
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Alpine v3.24 geth 1.17.0-r0 —
Alpine v3.23 geth 1.17.0-r0 —

Affected packages

EcosystemPackageAffectedFixedRecord
Go github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum < 1.16.9 1.16.9 GHSA-m6j8-rg6r-7mv8

Advisories 2

References