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We performed the first systematic study of a new attack on Ethereum that steals cryptocurrencies. The attack is due to the unprotected JSON-RPC endpoints existed in Ethereum nodes that could be exploited by attackers to transfer the Ether…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2019-07-31 Zhen Cheng , Xinrui Hou , Runhuai Li , Yajin Zhou , Xiapu Luo , Jinku Li , Kui Ren

Over the last few years, there has been substantial research on automated analysis, testing, and debugging of Ethereum smart contracts. However, it is not trivial to compare and reproduce that research. To address this, we present an…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2020-02-11 Thomas Durieux , João F. Ferreira , Rui Abreu , Pedro Cruz

The use of blockchain and smart contracts have not stopped growing in recent years. Like all software that begins to expand its use, it is also beginning to be targeted by hackers who will try to exploit vulnerabilities in both the…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2024-02-07 Antonio López Vivar , Ana Lucila Sandoval Orozco , Luis Javier García Villalba

Smart contracts are full-fledged programs that run on blockchains (e.g., Ethereum, one of the most popular blockchains). In Ethereum, gas (in Ether, a cryptographic currency like Bitcoin) is the execution fee compensating the computing…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2020-11-05 Ting Chen , Xiaoqi Li , Xiapu Luo , Xiaosong Zhang

Smart contracts are regarded as one of the most promising and appealing notions in blockchain technology. Their self-enforcing and event-driven features make some online activities possible without a trusted third party. Nevertheless,…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2021-02-16 Bin Hu , Zongyang Zhang , Jianwei Liu , Yizhong Liu , Jiayuan Yin , Rongxing Lu , Xiaodong Lin

Smart contracts on public blockchains now manage large amounts of value, and vulnerabilities in these systems can lead to substantial losses. As AI agents become more capable at reading, writing, and running code, it is natural to ask how…

As the public Ethereum network surpasses half a billion transactions and enterprise Blockchain systems becoming highly capable of meeting the demands of global deployments, production Blockchain applications are fast becoming commonplace…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2019-09-24 Evan Brinckman , Andrey Kuehlkamp , Jarek Nabrzyski , Ian J. Taylor

We propose and compare two approaches to identify smart contracts as token systems by analyzing their public bytecode. The first approach symbolically executes the code in order to detect token systems by their characteristic behavior of…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2018-11-29 Michael Fröwis , Andreas Fuchs , Rainer Böhme

Blockchain technology has set off a wave of decentralization in the world since its birth. The trust system constructed by blockchain technology based on cryptography algorithm and computing power provides a practical and powerful solution…

Computational Engineering, Finance, and Science · Computer Science 2025-05-08 Pengfei Gao , Dechao Kong , Xiaoqi Li

Vulnerabilities of Ethereum smart contracts often cause serious financial damage. Whereas the Solidity compiler has been updated to prevent vulnerabilities, its effectiveness has not been revealed so far, to the best of our knowledge. In…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2023-06-08 Chihiro Kado , Naoto Yanai , Jason Paul Cruz , Kyosuke Yamashita , Shingo Okamura

Smart contracts are programs running on a blockchain. They are immutable to change, and hence can not be patched for bugs once deployed. Thus it is critical to ensure they are bug-free and well-designed before deployment. A Contract defect…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2020-04-20 Jiachi Chen , Xin Xia , David Lo , John Grundy , Daniel Xiapu Luo , Ting Chen

The emerging blockchain technology supports decentralized computing paradigm shift and is a rapidly approaching phenomenon. While blockchain is thought primarily as the basis of Bitcoin, its application has grown far beyond cryptocurrencies…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2020-06-23 Reza M. Parizi , Ali Dehghantanha , Kim-Kwang Raymond Choo , Amritraj Singh

This article conducts an extensive examination of the persisting challenges related to smart contract attacks within blockchain networks, with a particular focus on the reentrancy attack. It emphasizes the inherent vulnerabilities embedded…

Social and Information Networks · Computer Science 2023-10-05 Simone Casale-Brunet , Marco Mattavelli

Ethereum smart contracts are an innovation built on top of the blockchain technology, which provides a platform for automatically executing contracts in an anonymous, distributed, and trusted way. The problem is magnified by the fact that…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2019-11-07 Jialiang Chang , Bo Gao , Hao Xiao , Jun Sun , Yan Cai , Zijiang Yang

The rise of smart contract systems such as Ethereum has resulted in a proliferation of blockchain-based decentralized applications including applications that store and manage a wide range of data. Current smart contracts are designed to be…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2019-02-26 Chao Li , Balaji Palanisamy , Runhua Xu

The widespread lack of broad source code verification on blockchain explorers such as Etherscan, where despite 78,047,845 smart contracts deployed on Ethereum (as of May 26, 2025), a mere 767,520 (< 1%) are open source, presents a severe…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2025-06-25 Isaac David , Liyi Zhou , Dawn Song , Arthur Gervais , Kaihua Qin

To empower smart contracts with the promising capabilities of cryptography, Ethereum officially introduced a set of cryptographic APIs that facilitate basic cryptographic operations within smart contracts, such as elliptic curve operations.…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2023-12-18 Jiashuo Zhang , Jiachi Chen , Zhiyuan Wan , Ting Chen , Jianbo Gao , Zhong Chen

In Ethereum, the practice of verifying the validity of the passed addresses is a common practice, which is a crucial step to ensure the secure execution of smart contracts. Vulnerabilities in the process of address verification can lead to…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2024-06-03 Tianle Sun , Ningyu He , Jiang Xiao , Yinliang Yue , Xiapu Luo , Haoyu Wang

Smart contracts on a blockchain behave precisely as specified by their code. A vulnerability in this code can lead to unexpected behaviour, which is hard to fix because a blockchain does not allow to change smart contract code after its…

Programming Languages · Computer Science 2019-11-27 Markus Knecht

Permissionless blockchains allow the execution of arbitrary programs (called smart contracts), enabling mutually untrusted entities to interact without relying on trusted third parties. Despite their potential, repeated security concerns…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2018-08-27 Petar Tsankov , Andrei Dan , Dana Drachsler Cohen , Arthur Gervais , Florian Buenzli , Martin Vechev