Smart contract security audit tips & tricks
Smart contract audits are critical to the blockchain sector. Audits evaluate contracts for security vulnerabilities, ensuring people’s digital assets aren’t stolen. This article will examine smart contract audits and its associated tips and tricks.
What is a smart contract?
It is a computer program stored on a blockchain that executes when predetermined conditions are fulfilled. It is a self-executing program that automates the terms of a transaction, with all parties immediately certain about the outcome.
Anyone can create and deploy a contract on a blockchain. The code is transparent and publicly accessible, allowing any third party to see the contract’s logic.
As with everything involving computers, the programmer might make mistakes in a contract’s code, and such errors leave an opening for malicious actors to steal funds. Audits evaluate every aspect of a contract to detect and correct any mistakes.
Smart contract auditing process
A smart contract audit is a comprehensive process involving many steps. It’s a detailed analysis of a contract’s code to detect any security vulnerabilities, coding errors, and inefficiencies that could be exploited by malicious actors. After analysis, the auditor works with the developer to fix any detected errors.
During the audit, a team of security experts and analysts review the contract’s code, logic, and architecture, checking for any part that could be at risk of malicious attacks.
Remember that the code is deployed on a blockchain like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, etc., and it becomes visible to anyone. Malicious actors constantly monitor contracts looking for bugs they can exploit to steal funds. An audit is an extensive review process ensuring the code doesn’t contain vulnerabilities before getting deployed on a public blockchain.
After an audit is complete, the auditor provides a summary report about their review. The report notes any issues that were found and how they were fixed. It also includes a roadmap for fixing any outstanding issues with the code. After a comprehensive review, the developer(s) can deploy their contract confidently on a blockchain because they’re sure the code is secure and user funds are safe.
How to audit a smart contract
Step 1: Documentation
The project being audited freezes its code and provides technical documentation to the auditor. This documentation includes the source code, architecture, whitepaper, and information about any other relevant technicalities.
Step 2: Automated testing
A formal verification engine runs automated tests to check every possible state of the contract and detect any issues undermining its security and functionality. The auditors can conduct other types of tests, such as penetration testing, unit tests on individual features, and integration tests.
Step 3: Review
The auditor’s team of security experts and analysts examine each line of code to detect errors and vulnerabilities. Automated tests are good at identifying programming bugs, but human testing is more adept at identifying issues with the underlying code’s architecture.
Step 4: Error classification
The auditor classifies each error according to the severity of a potential exploit.
- Critical – Impacts the protocol’s entire function.
- Major – Could cause loss of user funds or protocol control.
- Medium – Affects the protocol’s performance.
- Minor – Inefficient code, but doesn’t put the protocol at risk.
- Informational – Trivial errors related to coding style and industry practices
Step 5: Initial report
The auditor publishes an initial report summarizing any flaws they identified with the code alongside feedback on fixing them. Some auditors provide blockchain experts to help with fixing the errors.
Step 6: Final audit report
The auditor publishes a detailed final report, with all identified issues being marked resolved or unresolved. This report is given to the project’s owner and is publicly released to increase user confidence in the project.
Tips for choosing a contract auditor
- Pricing: Choose a firm whose fees you can afford. Larger, more experienced auditors tend to charge higher fees than smaller ones, but you can still find small auditors providing high-quality services.
- Methodology: Before paying, ensure you know which experts will conduct the audit, what tools they use, and how they’ll communicate their findings with your team.
- Experience: You can review the auditor’s past experience and research if previous customers were satisfied with what they got.