In the last decade, we have witnessed a large number of high profile cyberattacks on businesses and governments. More recently, these attacks have been associated with the rise of cryptocurrencies. With the increasing popularity of cryptocurrencies, the importance of smart contracts is also growing.
The problem is that these smart contracts need to be audited before being used by various businesses and organizations. Unfortunately, not all smart contracts are secure enough to be used in production.
This post is written to show you why smart contracts need to be audited, and what we check during the typical smart contract security testing. In this article, we will go through what is a smart contract audit and why you may need one.
What is a smart contract?
A smart contract is a contract that can self-execute and self-enforce based on the conditions defined by the parties involved in the contract. Smart contracts can be used in different industries and purposes, like crowdfunding or the gambling industry.
The growth of the Ethereum network has made smart contracts more popular than ever. Several Ethereum projects are creating new applications that will make use of smart contracts, like the decentralized sharing economy.
What is a smart contract audit?
Smart contract audit is the evaluation of the security and efficiency of smart contracts. During typical smart contract audit, we check for common issues depending on the network our target is using. Besides security issues, any deviations from expected behaviour is documented and presented to the client.
Smart Contract Audit Checklist
Because our approach to each smart contract auditing project is specific and different due to the variety of technologies they use, it is not possible to provide an “apply for all” smart contract audit checklist. However, some of the general checks we do are:
- Reentrancy
- Incorrect calculation of the output token amount
- Interface / naming issues
- Dependency on the order of execution
- Time component
- Using the blockhash function
- Incorrectly handled exceptions
- Incorrect work with third-party contracts like ERC-20 token
Our Smart Contract Audit Services
Providing smart contract audit services is an extremely responsible task, especially considering the fundamentas of smart contracts explained above.
Furthermore, most smart contracts contain financial value which increases the need for manual security auditing of the smart contract we provide at SecureBlock. Our clients also enjoy the experience of tracking found vulnerabilities and deviations in real-time functionality through our private client portal. If you are looking for a smart contract audit service, request a free quote from SecureBlock.
For more information about us, check our services and work.
Automated Tools for Smart Contract Audits
To ensure the security and functionality of smart contracts, they are audited by a team of senior smart contract developers and security experts.
However, this process is costly and time consuming. With the rise in smart contract development and deployment, there is an urgent need to improve the auditing process.
Automated tools for smart contract audits are a great add-on to save time on finding low-hangling fruits, but should never be trusted without manual inspection as automated tools will often contain false positive results.