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CVE-2024-24563 — Vyper array negative index vulnerability

2026-10-02T21:33:46.605214+00:00

Affected: vyperlang vyper

Vyper is a Pythonic Smart Contract Language for the Ethereum Virtual Machine. Arrays can be keyed by a signed integer, while they are defined for unsigned integers only. The typechecker doesn't throw when spotting the usage of an `int` as an index for an array. The typechecker allows the usage of signed integers to be used as indexes to arrays. The vulnerability is present in different forms in all versions, including `0.3.10`. For ints, the 2's complement representation is used. Because the array was declared very large, the bounds checking will pass Negative values will simply be represented as very large numbers. As of time of publication, a fixed version does not exist.

There are three potential vulnerability classes: unpredictable behavior, accessing inaccessible elements and denial of service. Class 1: If it is possible to index an array with a negative integer without reverting, this is most likely not anticipated by the developer and such accesses can cause unpredictable behavior for the contract. Class 2: If a contract has an invariant in the form `assert index < x`, the developer will suppose that no elements on indexes `y | y >= x` are accessible. However, by using negative indexes, this can be bypassed. Class 3: If the index is dependent on the state of the contract, this poses a risk of denial of service. If the state of the contract can be manipulated in such way that the index will be forced to be negative, the array access can always revert (because most lik…

GHSA-52xq-j7v9-v4v2 — Vyper negative array index bounds checks

2026-10-02T21:33:46.605290+00:00

Affected: PyPI: vyper

### Summary Arrays can be keyed by a signed integer, while they are defined for unsigned integers only. The typechecker doesn't throw when spotting the usage of an `int` as an index for an array. Typically, negative integers are filtered out at runtime by the bounds checker, but small enough (i.e. large in magnitude, ex. `-2**255 + 5`) quantities combined with large enough arrays (at least `2**255` in length) can pass the bounds checker, resulting in unexpected behavior.

A contract search was performed, and no production contracts were found to be impacted.

### Details The typechecker allows the usage of signed integers to be used as indexes to arrays. The vulnerability is present in different forms in all versions. Here is an example from `0.3.10`: https://github.com/vyperlang/vyper/blob/c150fc49ee9375a930d177044559b83cb95f7963/vyper/semantics/types/subscriptable.py#L127-L137

As can be seen, the validation is performed against `IntegerT.any()`.

### PoC If the array is sufficiently large, it can be indexed with a negative value: ```python arr: public(uint256[MAX_UINT256])

@external def set(idx: int256, num: uint256): self.arr[idx] = num ``` For signed integers, the 2's complement representation is used. Because the array was declared very large, the bounds checking will pass (negative values will simply be represented as very large numbers): https://github.com/vyperlang/vyper/blob/a1fd228cb9936c3e4bbca6f3ee3fb4426ef45490/vyper/codegen/core.py#L534-L541

### Patches…