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Related papers: Assessing Smart Contracts Security Technical Debts

200 papers

Blockchain is a disruptive technology intended at implementing secure decentralized distributed systems, in which transactional data can be shared, stored and verified by participants of a system using cryptographic and consensus…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2019-03-11 Sabreen Ahmadjee , Rami Bahsoon

Smart contracts are fundamental components of blockchain ecosystems; however, their security remains a critical concern due to inherent vulnerabilities. While existing detection methodologies are predominantly syntax-oriented, targeting…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2026-03-30 Ali Fattahdizaji , Mohammad Pishdar , Zarina Shukur

Smart contract technology facilitates self-executing agreements on the blockchain, eliminating dependency on an external trusted authority. However, smart contracts may expose vulnerabilities that can lead to financial losses and…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2026-01-14 Emre Balci , Timucin Aydede , Gorkem Yilmaz , Ece Gelal Soyak

Blockchain-based platforms are emerging as a transformative technology that can provide reliability, integrity, and auditability without trusted entities. One of the key features of these platforms is the trustworthy decentralized execution…

Computers and Society · Computer Science 2020-01-20 Afiya Ayman , Shanto Roy , Amin Alipour , Aron Laszka

With the rapid development of blockchain technology, smart contract security has become a critical challenge. Existing smart contract vulnerability detection methods face three main issues: (1) Insufficient quality of datasets, lacking…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2024-11-12 Lei Yu , Shiqi Chen , Hang Yuan , Peng Wang , Zhirong Huang , Jingyuan Zhang , Chenjie Shen , Fengjun Zhang , Li Yang , Jiajia Ma

Smart contracts are Turing-complete programs running on the blockchain. They are immutable and cannot be modified, even when bugs are detected. Therefore, ensuring smart contracts are bug-free and well-designed before deploying them to the…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2021-03-24 Jiachi Chen , Xin Xia , David Lo , John Grundy , Xiapu Luo , Ting Chen

The adoption of blockchain based distributed ledgers is growing fast due to their ability to provide reliability, integrity, and auditability without trusted entities. One of the key capabilities of these emerging platforms is the ability…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2019-01-23 Anastasia Mavridou , Aron Laszka , Emmanouela Stachtiari , Abhishek Dubey

Smart contract access control mechanisms can introduce centralization into supposedly decentralized ecosystems. In our view, such centralization is an overlooked risk of smart contracts that underlies well-known smart contract security…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2023-12-12 Metin Lamby , Valentin Zieglmeier , Christian Ziegler

The rise of modern blockchains has facilitated the emergence of smart contracts: autonomous programs that live and run on the blockchain. Smart contracts have seen a rapid climb to prominence, with applications predicted in law, business,…

Programming Languages · Computer Science 2018-09-12 Lexi Brent , Anton Jurisevic , Michael Kong , Eric Liu , Francois Gauthier , Vincent Gramoli , Ralph Holz , Bernhard Scholz

Smart contracts are programs running on cryptocurrency (e.g., Ethereum) blockchains, whose popularity stem from the possibility to perform financial transactions, such as payments and auctions, in a distributed environment without need for…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2018-04-24 Ilya Grishchenko , Matteo Maffei , Clara Schneidewind

The usage of error handling in Solidity smart contracts is vital because smart contracts perform transactions that should be verified. Transactions that are not carefully handled, may lead to program crashes and vulnerabilities, implying…

Smart contracts are prone to various vulnerabilities, leading to substantial financial losses over time. Current analysis tools mainly target vulnerabilities with fixed control or data-flow patterns, such as re-entrancy and integer…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2024-05-07 Yuqiang Sun , Daoyuan Wu , Yue Xue , Han Liu , Haijun Wang , Zhengzi Xu , Xiaofei Xie , Yang Liu

Speeding up development may produce technical debt, i.e., not-quite-right code for which the effort to make it right increases with time as a sort of interest. Developers may be aware of the debt as they admit it in their code comments.…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2022-05-05 Barbara Russo , Matteo Camilli , Moritz Mock

Smart contracts are small programs on the blockchain that often handle valuable assets. Vulnerabilities in smart contracts can be costly, as time has shown over and over again. Countermeasures are high in demand and include best practice…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2023-05-03 Monika di Angelo , Gernot Salzer

Smart contracts are immutable, verifiable, and autonomous pieces of code that can be deployed and ran on blockchain networks like Ethereum. Due to the immutability nature of blockchain, no change is possible on a deployed smart contract or…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2019-12-25 Erfan Andesta , Fathiyeh Faghih , Mahdi Fooladgar

Smart contract vulnerabilities, particularly improper Access Control that allows unauthorized execution of restricted functions, have caused billions of dollars in losses. GitHub hosts numerous smart contract repositories containing source…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2025-10-23 Chong Chen , Jiachi Chen , Lingfeng Bao , David Lo , Yanlin Wang , Zhenyu Shan , Ting Chen , Guangqiang Yin , Jianxing Yu , Zibin Zheng

Smart contracts form the core of Web3 applications. Contracts mediate the transfer of cryptocurrency, making them irresistible targets for hackers. We introduce ASP, a system aimed at easing the construction of provably secure contracts.…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2024-11-25 Devora Chait-Roth , Kedar S. Namjoshi

Smart contract (SC) is an extension of BlockChain technology. Ethereum BlockChain was the first to incorporate SC and thus started a new era of crypto-currencies and electronic transactions. Solidity helps to program the SCs. Still, soon…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2021-01-01 Zulfiqar Ali Khan , Akbar Siami Namin

Due to the inherent immutability of blockchain technology, smart contract updates require their deployment at new addresses rather than modifying existing ones, thus fragmenting version histories and creating critical blind spots for…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2025-07-09 Fatou Ndiaye Mbodji , Vinny Adjibi , Moustapha Awwalou Diouf , Gervais Mendy , Kui Liu , Jacques Klein , Tegawende Bissyande

Smart contract developers frequently seek solutions to developmental challenges on Q&A platforms such as Stack Overflow (SO). Although community responses often provide viable solutions, the embedded code snippets can also contain hidden…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2024-07-24 Jiachi Chen , Chong Chen , Jiang Hu , John Grundy , Yanlin Wang , Ting Chen , Zibin Zheng