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kora-lib: Token-2022 Transfer Fee Not Deducted During Payment Verification

Moderate severity GitHub Reviewed Published Mar 11, 2026 in solana-foundation/kora

Package

cargo kora-lib (Rust)

Affected versions

< 2.0.5

Patched versions

2.0.5

Description

Summary

When a user pays transaction fees using a Token-2022 token with a TransferFeeConfig extension, Kora's verify_token_payment() credits the full raw transfer amount as the payment value. However, the on-chain SPL Token-2022 program withholds a portion of that amount as a transfer fee, so the paymaster's destination account only receives amount - transfer_fee. This means the paymaster consistently credits more value than it actually receives, resulting in systematic financial loss.

Severity

High

Affected Component

  • File: crates/lib/src/token/token.rs
  • Function: verify_token_payment()
  • Lines: 529–654 (specifically 633–639)

Root Cause

In verify_token_payment(), the amount extracted from the parsed SPL transfer instruction is the pre-fee amount (what the sender specifies in the transfer_checked instruction). The function passes this raw amount to calculate_token_value_in_lamports() to determine how many lamports the payment is worth. It never subtracts the Token-2022 transfer fee.

The fee estimation path (fee.rs:analyze_payment_instructions) correctly accounts for transfer fees by calculating them and adding them to the total fee. But the verification path does not perform the inverse subtraction, creating an asymmetry.

Vulnerable Code

// crates/lib/src/token/token.rs:529-654
pub async fn verify_token_payment(
    transaction_resolved: &mut VersionedTransactionResolved,
    rpc_client: &RpcClient,
    required_lamports: u64,
    expected_destination_owner: &Pubkey,
) -> Result<bool, KoraError> {
    let config = get_config()?;
    let mut total_lamport_value = 0u64;

    // ...

    for instruction in transaction_resolved
        .get_or_parse_spl_instructions()?
        .get(&ParsedSPLInstructionType::SplTokenTransfer)
        .unwrap_or(&vec![])
    {
        if let ParsedSPLInstructionData::SplTokenTransfer {
            source_address,
            destination_address,
            mint,
            amount,      // <-- This is the PRE-FEE amount from the instruction
            is_2022,
            ..
        } = instruction
        {
            // ... destination validation ...

            // LINE 633-639: Uses raw *amount without deducting transfer fee
            let lamport_value = TokenUtil::calculate_token_value_in_lamports(
                *amount,        // <-- BUG: Should be (amount - transfer_fee)
                &token_mint,
                config.validation.price_source.clone(),
                rpc_client,
            )
            .await?;

            total_lamport_value = total_lamport_value
                .checked_add(lamport_value)
                .ok_or_else(|| {
                    KoraError::ValidationError("Payment accumulation overflow".to_string())
                })?;
        }
    }

    Ok(total_lamport_value >= required_lamports)
}

For comparison, the transfer fee calculation exists elsewhere in the codebase and is used during fee estimation:

// crates/lib/src/token/spl_token_2022.rs:165-198
pub fn calculate_transfer_fee(
    &self,
    amount: u64,
    current_epoch: u64,
) -> Result<Option<u64>, KoraError> {
    if let Some(fee_config) = self.get_transfer_fee() {
        let transfer_fee = if current_epoch >= u64::from(fee_config.newer_transfer_fee.epoch) {
            &fee_config.newer_transfer_fee
        } else {
            &fee_config.older_transfer_fee
        };
        let basis_points = u16::from(transfer_fee.transfer_fee_basis_points);
        let maximum_fee = u64::from(transfer_fee.maximum_fee);
        let fee_amount = (amount as u128)
            .checked_mul(basis_points as u128)
            .and_then(|product| product.checked_div(10_000))
            // ...
        Ok(Some(std::cmp::min(fee_amount, maximum_fee)))
    } else {
        Ok(None)
    }
}

This function exists but is never called in verify_token_payment().

Proof of Concept

Arithmetic Demonstration

Given:

  • Token-2022 token with 5% transfer fee (500 basis points), whitelisted in allowed_spl_paid_tokens
  • Transaction fee cost: 5000 lamports equivalent
  • Token price: 1 token = 5 lamports

What should happen:

  • User needs to pay 5000 lamports worth → 1000 tokens
  • Transfer fee on 1000 tokens at 5% = 50 tokens
  • Paymaster destination receives: 1000 - 50 = 950 tokens (worth 4750 lamports)
  • User should be required to pay MORE to cover the fee

What actually happens:

  • User sends transfer_checked for amount = 1000 tokens
  • verify_token_payment() calculates: 1000 tokens * 5 lamports/token = 5000 lamports
  • 5000 >= 5000 required → payment verified as sufficient
  • But paymaster only received 950 tokens (worth 4750 lamports)
  • Paymaster lost 250 lamports on this transaction

Over 1000 transactions: Paymaster loses 250,000 lamports (0.25 SOL)

Runnable Test (using existing test infrastructure)

#[tokio::test]
async fn test_token2022_transfer_fee_not_deducted_in_verification() {
    // Setup: Token-2022 mint with 10% transfer fee (1000 bps)
    let transfer_fee_config = create_transfer_fee_config(
        1000,      // 10% basis points
        u64::MAX,  // no maximum fee cap
    );

    let mint_pubkey = Pubkey::new_unique();
    let mint_account = MintAccountMockBuilder::new()
        .with_decimals(6)
        .with_supply(1_000_000_000_000)
        .with_extension(ExtensionType::TransferFeeConfig)
        .build_token2022();

    // User sends transfer_checked for 1,000,000 tokens (1 token at 6 decimals)
    let transfer_amount: u64 = 1_000_000;

    // What verify_token_payment credits:
    let credited_amount = transfer_amount;  // = 1,000,000

    // What the paymaster actually receives (after 10% on-chain fee):
    let actual_received = transfer_amount - (transfer_amount * 1000 / 10000);  // = 900,000

    // BUG: credited_amount (1,000,000) > actual_received (900,000)
    // Paymaster is credited 11.1% MORE than it actually receives
    assert!(credited_amount > actual_received);
    assert_eq!(credited_amount - actual_received, 100_000); // 100,000 token units lost

    // The financial loss per transaction = 10% of the payment amount
    // This is NOT a rounding error — it is a full percentage-based loss
}

Impact

  • Systematic Financial Loss: The paymaster consistently credits more token value than it receives for every transaction paid with a transfer-fee-bearing Token-2022 token.
  • Loss Scale: Proportional to transfer_fee_basis_points / 10000 * payment_amount per transaction. For a token with 5% fee and 100 transactions/day at $1 each, that is $5/day or $1,825/year in losses.
  • Precondition: Requires a Token-2022 token with TransferFeeConfig extension to be whitelisted in allowed_spl_paid_tokens. The existing test infrastructure already creates such tokens (TestAccountSetup::create_usdc_mint_2022() with 100 bps / 1% fee).

Recommendation

Deduct the Token-2022 transfer fee before calculating the lamport value of the payment:

// In verify_token_payment(), after extracting amount:
let effective_amount = if *is_2022 {
    // Fetch the mint to check for TransferFeeConfig
    let mint_account = CacheUtil::get_account(
        rpc_client,
        &token_mint,
        false,
    ).await?;
    let mint_info = Token2022MintInfo::from_account_data(&mint_account.data)?;

    if let Ok(Some(fee)) = mint_info.calculate_transfer_fee(
        *amount,
        rpc_client.get_epoch_info().await?.epoch,
    ) {
        amount.saturating_sub(fee)
    } else {
        *amount
    }
} else {
    *amount
};

let lamport_value = TokenUtil::calculate_token_value_in_lamports(
    effective_amount,  // Use post-fee amount
    &token_mint,
    config.validation.price_source.clone(),
    rpc_client,
)
.await?;

References

  • crates/lib/src/token/token.rs:529-654verify_token_payment() using raw amount
  • crates/lib/src/token/spl_token_2022.rs:165-198calculate_transfer_fee() (exists but not called in verification)
  • crates/lib/src/fee/fee.rs:174-204analyze_payment_instructions() (correctly accounts for transfer fee in estimation)
  • SPL Token-2022 specification: transfer fees are deducted from the transfer amount by the on-chain program

References

@dev-jodee dev-jodee published to solana-foundation/kora Mar 11, 2026
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Mar 12, 2026
Reviewed Mar 12, 2026

Severity

Moderate

EPSS score

Weaknesses

No CWEs

CVE ID

No known CVE

GHSA ID

GHSA-725g-w329-g7qr

Credits

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