From 5e3d9f21df21a822dc210d73a000faba084e6067 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Antoine Poinsot <darosior@protonmail.com>
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2024 19:16:11 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] doc: validation: add a reference to historical header spam
 vulnerability

---
 src/validation.cpp | 4 ++++
 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+)

diff --git a/src/validation.cpp b/src/validation.cpp
index 0384018bc36..3d2fe2364bf 100644
--- a/src/validation.cpp
+++ b/src/validation.cpp
@@ -4202,6 +4202,10 @@ arith_uint256 CalculateClaimedHeadersWork(std::span<const CBlockHeader> headers)
  *  enforced in this function (eg by adding a new consensus rule). See comment
  *  in ConnectBlock().
  *  Note that -reindex-chainstate skips the validation that happens here!
+ *
+ *  NOTE: failing to check the header's height against the last checkpoint's opened a DoS vector between
+ *  v0.12 and v0.15 (when no additional protection was in place) whereby an attacker could unboundedly
+ *  grow our in-memory block index. See https://bitcoincore.org/en/2024/07/03/disclose-header-spam.
  */
 static bool ContextualCheckBlockHeader(const CBlockHeader& block, BlockValidationState& state, BlockManager& blockman, const ChainstateManager& chainman, const CBlockIndex* pindexPrev) EXCLUSIVE_LOCKS_REQUIRED(::cs_main)
 {