CVE-2018-13491
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 · uneditedThe mintToken function of a smart contract implementation for Carrot, an Ethereum token, has an integer overflow that allows the owner of the contract to set the balance of an arbitrary user to any value.
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 confidenceThe Carrot Ethereum token smart contract contains an integer overflow vulnerability in its mintToken function. This allows the contract owner to manipulate the balance of any user to arbitrary values by exploiting the overflow condition when minting tokens.
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 dataall versionsCVSS 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 checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify the deployed contractQuery the blockchain for the contract at the Carrot Cartoon Book Coin address and verify its name matches 'Carrot Cartoon Book Coin' or 'Carrot' tokenAffected if The deployed contract is the Carrot Cartoon Book Coin token contract
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Check if mintToken function existsInspect the contract's source code or bytecode for a function named 'mintToken' that accepts a target address and an amount parameterAffected if The contract contains a mintToken function that allows minting tokens to any address
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Verify lack of SafeMath protectionExamine the contract source code to confirm the mintToken function uses direct arithmetic operators (+, -, *, /) instead of SafeMath library methods for balance calculationsAffected if The mintToken function performs arithmetic without SafeMath and has no overflow checks
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Confirm owner-only access to mintTokenCheck the function visibility and access control - verify only the contract owner can call mintToken and the function allows arbitrary balance manipulation without user consentAffected if The owner can call mintToken to set any user's balance to any value without restrictions
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Check Solidity compiler versionLocate the contract's compiler version in the metadata - if the contract was compiled with Solidity below 0.8.0, it lacks built-in overflow checksAffected if The contract uses Solidity version < 0.8.0 without external overflow protection
If you have deployed the Carrot Cartoon Book Coin contract, it is affected by this vulnerability because the owner can manipulate any user's token balance through an overflow-vulnerable mintToken function.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
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 dataReplace the vulnerable mintToken function with an overflow-safe implementation using SafeMath libraries or Solidity 0.8+ with built-in overflow checks, and redeploy the corrected contract if already deployed.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation4.0 h
- Testing6.0 h
- Review / QA3.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $4,096.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2018-13491 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2018-13491 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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