Smart contract audit
Why Do We Need Smart Contract Audits?
Smart contracts are appealing targets for harmful attacks from hackers because of the large quantities of money they transfer through or lock into them. As a result, minor code flaws may cause large quantities of money theft. Ethereum’s DAO breach, for example, resulted in the loss of 60 million dollars in ETH and a network hard fork. Because of the irreversibility of blockchain transactions, it is critical that a project’s code be safe. Furthermore, because of the difficulty in recovering cash and resolving difficulties that may have arisen due to the high level of security provided by blockchain technology, it is always preferable to avoid any potential weaknesses.
Automated auditing of smart contracts
Smart contract auditing may be approached in various ways using various technologies, but understanding how the audit works is critical. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct thorough audits of smart contracts in blockchain systems. Design flaws, security vulnerabilities, and coding problems are the primary focus of the audits. In addition, smart contract auditors often provide a clear audit roadmap to assist you in better understanding the process. The optimum procedure for smart contract audits includes the following best practices.
Specification Agreement
The most crucial consideration in the auditing of smart contracts is to come to an agreement on the specification of smart contracts. A project’s architecture, development methodology, and design decisions are all explained in detail in the smart contract specification and supporting documentation. In addition, the specification is often described in the project’s README file.
Process of Testing
Smart contract auditing allows you to get right into the testing phase. Testing is a crucial component in increasing the audit cost of a smart contract. Simple and quick bug discovery methods are also available via testing. Many solutions are available, including unit tests that concentrate on specific functions and integration tests that examine the whole code. The number of issues that may be readily fixed may be reduced as a result of better testing coverage. In addition, testing lets developers confirm that a smart contract project has the needed functionality and performance. Finally, smart contract auditors may get extra insight into projected project functionality from the informal documentation provided by testing.
Manual analysis
Smart contract audits benefit significantly from the use of automated analytical techniques. Using these, typical smart contract flaws may be easily identified. Auditors, on the other hand, have a hard time comprehending what smart contract developers are trying to do. As a result, when it comes to smart contract code vulnerabilities, human examination is the only way to find them. A skilled auditing team examines a project’s specifications to ensure that they meet the required functional requirements. In addition, the smart contract auditors may provide the smart contract project team with solid suggestions for improvement based on their observations.
Contract Safety and Security Checklist
- Logic Bugs
- Failed Sends
- Integer Arithmetic Overflow
- Poison Data
- Exposed Functions
- Exposed Secrets
- Denial of Service / Dust Spam
- Miner Vulnerabilities
- Malicious Creator
- Off-chain Safety
- Cross-chain Replay Attacks
- Tx.Origin Problem
- Solidity Function Signatures and Fallback Data Collisions
- Incorrect use of Cryptography
- Gas Limits
- Stack Depth Exhaustion