High severity · published May 8, 2026
CVE-2026-44499
ZEBRA: Permanent Block Discovery Halt via Gossip Queue Saturation and Syncer Poisoning
8.7
CVSS
0.4%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
ZEBRA is a Zcash node written entirely in Rust. Prior to version 4.4.0, a composite denial-of-service vulnerability in Zebra's block discovery pipeline allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to permanently halt all new block discovery on a targeted node. The attack exploits three independent weaknesses in the gossip, syncer, and download subsystems — all exercisable from a single TCP connection — to create a monotonically growing block deficit that never self-heals. This issue has been patched in version 4.4.0.
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.4% · higher than 29% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
ZE
zebra · ZcashFoundation
< 4.4.0 · source: vendor
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-44499
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-44499
github.com
https://github.com/ZcashFoundation/zebra/security/advisories/GHSA-h9hm-m2xj-4rq9
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