Virtual Energy UnitsApplication · Virtual Energy Units Project

CVE-2018-13224

HIGH · 7.5 CVSS v3.0 Published 2018-07-05
Mitigation only
No fix yet — a mitigation exists. There is no fixed release. A documented workaround reduces exposure in the meantime.
See remediation →
84/100
Remediation priority · High
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
The sell function of a smart contract implementation for Virtual Energy Units (VEU) (Contract Name: VEU_TokenERC20), an Ethereum token, has an integer overflow in which "amount * sellPrice" can be zero, consequently reducing a seller's assets.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · high confidence

Integer overflow vulnerability in the VEU_TokenERC20 smart contract's sell function allows 'amount * sellPrice' to wrap to zero due to lack of overflow protection, causing sellers to receive zero ETH while losing their tokens.

MitigationImplement SafeMath library for integer operations or upgrade to Solidity 0.8+ with built-in overflow checks, and add explicit validation that the multiplication result is greater than zero before proceeding with the sale.

Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
Virtual Energy UnitsApplication
Affected:all versions

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
High
Availability
None

CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N

Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.

dbcve checks

Work through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.

  1. Identify if VEU_TokenERC20 contract is deployed
    Query your blockchain for contracts named 'VEU_TokenERC20' or 'Virtual Energy Units' and retrieve their deployed bytecode or source code
    Affected if The contract with name VEU_TokenERC20 exists in your environment
  2. Locate the sell function in the contract
    Examine the contract source code or decompiled bytecode and locate the function that handles token selling (typically named 'sell' or 'sellTokens')
    Affected if A sell function exists in the contract
  3. Check for SafeMath usage in multiplication
    Search within the sell function for the pattern 'amount * sellPrice' and verify if it uses SafeMath library (e.g., 'sellPrice.mul(amount)') or raw multiplication operators (*,*)
    Affected if The multiplication uses raw operators like '*' instead of SafeMath.mul() or Solidity 0.8+ built-in checked math
  4. Verify Solidity compiler version
    Check the contract metadata or source code pragma statement to determine the Solidity version used for compilation
    Affected if Contract is compiled with Solidity version earlier than 0.8.0 (e.g., 0.4.x, 0.5.x, 0.6.x) which lacks built-in overflow checks
  5. Test for zero-value multiplication
    If you have test tokens, call the sell function with an amount where amount * sellPrice would overflow to zero (very large numbers near uint256 max), and observe if you receive zero ETH
    Affected if Calling sell with large amounts results in receiving zero ETH despite losing tokens

Your environment is affected if you have deployed the VEU_TokenERC20 contract and its sell function uses raw multiplication for 'amount * sellPrice' without SafeMath or Solidity 0.8+ overflow checks.

Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.

Check your environment

Paste your version and any relevant configuration and it will be compared against the affected criteria above. Do not include secrets or credentials.

AI-assisted, checked against the advisory. Informational, not a guarantee.

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

From vendor data
Mitigation available No clean upgrade yet — mitigate in the meantime
Mitigation

Implement SafeMath library for integer operations or upgrade to Solidity 0.8+ with built-in overflow checks, and add explicit validation that the multiplication result is greater than zero before proceeding with the sale.

Fix this in Virtual Energy Units Scoped from the published advisory
  • Consultation2.0 h
  • Implementation2.0 h
  • Testing3.0 h
  • Review / QA2.0 h
9.0 hours of engineering $1,570
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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2018-13224 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

What belongs here
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