Emergent technologies such as Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence are gradually changing our lives. It would help if your machines were safe, so investing in the latest technology is the only way. Getting a smart contract audit company is the best way to secure your blockchain projects and make the financial world better for transactions.
If you’ve been in the blockchain space for quite some time now, you would know how beneficial it is for the users, providing them with transparency, security, traceability, and decentralization. Having said that, these features pave the way to numerous vulnerabilities. This also makes this blockchain technology based on smart contracts prone to cybersecurity threats and attacks.
Therefore, relying upon erudite smart contract security auditors is an excellent option to pay greater attention to finding and addressing the vulnerabilities in your smart contract. This way, you will also be able to mitigate the risks associated with users' data and funds.
This blog will discuss the smart contract auditing process in detail to understand how auditors conduct it and why it is essential.
What is a Smart Contract Audit, and Why Do You Need It?
SC audits are similar to traditional code audits in that they are undertaken to uncover security vulnerabilities before putting the code onto the public network.
Once a code is deployed, changing it won't be possible, and you know this. Hence, finding and eliminating all the vulnerabilities in the earlier stage is mandatory so that the transactions can be smooth without hackers exploiting the vulnerabilities and draining the funds.
Smart contract auditors pay a lot of attention to specific areas, which are as follows:
- Design features
- Tradeoffs
- Critical errors
- The complexity of the smart contracts
Most of the time, the internal developers often overlook these things and cannot look at the contract from a fresh perspective. This is where external auditors come into play and give unbiased feedback on the vulnerabilities present in the smart contract.
Let us proceed with how the process takes place and all the things the experts consider when performing smart contract auditing.
Additional Read: How to Audit Smart Contracts?
How Will The Auditors Perform Smart Contract Audits For Your Business?
Auditing is one of the most complex processes you will ever encounter. There are several steps that the process involves. These include:
- First, the team of external developers will gather different code design models so that they can review the architecture.
- This is followed by unit testing and manual analysis.
- They consider a lot of things like whether the smart contract functions use the proper level of gas, checking and monitoring the gas limits of functions, and then note down the intended behavior of the smart contract that is being audited.
- They use various tools to conduct automatic testing, like Populus, Truffle, Slitherm Manticore, Solium, Smart Check, and Oyente.
- After identifying the issues, the auditors produce a report and present it to the client.
- In the report, they enlist a complete list of vulnerabilities and errors. They categorize them as per their severity.
- Then, they suggest fixes for those vulnerabilities and inform clients about those points that do not need to be addressed immediately.
- At the end, when all the changes are accommodated in the smart contract, they verify the smart contract so that they can remove the remaining glitches and anomalies if any.
Can you possibly think of doing these things on your own? Not only will it demand an enormous amount of your time, but it will also not be as accurate as the one that experienced auditors carry out. So, if you wish to save your funds from leaking, getting a smart contract is the least you can do for your business!
Problems That Require Smart Contract Auditing
Numerous vulnerabilities pose dangerous threats to your blockchain projects and compromise security. Worry not, as smart contract auditing can easily prevent them.
They are:
Reentrancy
Repeated entry causes this attack. The contract address's fallback function is where the attacker generates harmful code. Once the assets are sent to the account for the weak contract, the malicious code is activated and the fallback function is carried out. The attacker can thus take the assets of the contract. The most well-known instance of the reentrancy problem is the DAO attacks.
Timestamp Dependence
This possible flaw affects smart contracts that control the execution of some crucial activities using the block timestamp. With enough processing power, an attacker may alter the block timestamp to prevent those crucial activities from being completed and produce favorable results. Examining timestamp usage through auditing is helpful, especially if transaction timing is important.
Cross-function Race condition
When a function's state and solution are identical, this typical issue arises. For instance, one can externally call transfer when the balance has not yet been set to 0. In this manner, even when the withdrawal has already been done, the tokens can still be stolen. To prevent or reduce the risk of such actions, auditors should investigate if it is feasible to call one function while the other is still in the middle of its execution.
Gas Limit and Loops
Each block has the maximum amount of gas used for a transaction. A transaction will fail if the amount of gas utilized exceeds what is permitted. About 90% of all exceptions on Ethereum are due to out-of-gasp issues, which result in substantial monetary losses. Smart contract auditing assists in identifying contracts with gas-related risks and developing solutions to this problem.
Over-and Underflow Attack
Programming languages for smart contracts are susceptible to the underflow attack, which happens when a variable of a unit type has a value that is one greater than the maximum. Attackers who take advantage of this flaw use a transfer that reduces the balance below the minimum, producing many credits. In certain circumstances, it resets to zero and vice versa. Users' assets are at risk from this vulnerability, which may be found through smart contract audits.
To eliminate these issues, it is necessary to get smart contract auditing done. ImmuneBytes is a pioneer auditing firm that leaves no stone unturned in this process and helps in mitigating and eliminating the vulnerabilities in smart contracts, resulting in creating a safer blockchain space!
Author Bio:
I am Ouruz Clark, a security researcher from Cambridge University. I have been keenly interested in blockchain technology since my childhood. I am now pursuing a Ph.D. in cybersecurity. Being an avid reader, I dwell in the world of cryptocurrency in my leisure time and post blogs on different topics related to this field.