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Many Ethereum smart contracts rely on block attributes such as block.timestamp or blockhash to generate random numbers for applications like lotteries and games. However, these values are predictable and miner-manipulable, creating the Bad…
Blockchain programs (also known as smart contracts) manage valuable assets like cryptocurrencies and tokens, and implement protocols in domains like decentralized finance (DeFi) and supply-chain management. These types of applications…
We reveal six zero-day social engineering attacks in Ethereum, and subdivide them into two classes: Address Manipulation and Homograph. We demonstrate the attacks by embedding them in source codes of five popular smart contracts with…
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…
The rise of decentralized applications (dApps) has made smart contracts imperative components of blockchain technology. As many smart contracts process financial transactions, their security is paramount. Moreover, the immutability of…
Ethereum is currently the main blockchain ecosystem providing decentralised trust guarantees for applications ranging from finance to e-government. A common criticism of blockchain networks has been their energy consumption and operational…
As the Ethereum platform continues to mature and gain widespread usage, it is crucial to maintain high standards of smart contract writing practices. While bad practices in smart contracts may not directly lead to security issues, they…
Smart contracts, integral to blockchain ecosystems, enable decentralized applications to execute predefined operations without intermediaries. Their ability to enforce trustless interactions has made them a core component of platforms such…
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…
More than eight million smart contracts have been deployed into Ethereum, which is the most popular blockchain that supports smart contract. However, less than 1% of deployed smart contracts are open-source, and it is difficult for users to…
Ethereum has become a widely used platform to enable secure, Blockchain-based financial and business transactions. However, many identified bugs and vulnerabilities in smart contracts have led to serious financial losses, which raises…
Many empirical software engineering studies show that there is a great need for repositories where source code is acquired, filtered and classified. During the last few years, Ethereum block explorer services have emerged as a popular…
Ethereum smart contracts operate in a concurrent environment where multiple transactions can be submitted simultaneously. However, the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) enforces sequential execution of transactions within each block to prevent…
While catastrophic attacks on Ethereum persist, vulnerability research remains fixated on implementation-level smart contract bugs, creating a gap between academic understanding of vulnerabilities and the root causes of high-impact,…
Ethereum smart contracts are highly powerful, immutable, and able to retain massive amounts of tokens. However, smart contracts keep attracting attackers to benefit from smart contract flaws and Ethereum unexpected behavior. Thus,…
Upgradeable smart contracts (USCs) have been widely adopted to enable modifying deployed smart contracts. While USCs bring great flexibility to developers, improper usage might introduce new security issues, potentially allowing attackers…
This paper presents a study of the Poof-of-Stake (PoW) Ethereum consensus protocol, following the recent switch from Proof-of-Work (PoS) to Proof-of-Stake within Merge upgrade. The new protocol has resulted in reduced energy consumption and…
The blockchain technology is believed by many to be a game changer in many application domains, especially financial applications. While the first generation of blockchain technology (i.e., Blockchain 1.0) is almost exclusively used for…
Ethereum contracts can be designed to function as fully decentralized applications called DAPPs. Many DAPPs have already been fielded, including an online marketplace, a role playing game, a prediction market, and an Internet service…
In this paper, we explore remarkable similarities between multi-transactional behaviors of smart contracts in cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum and classical problems of shared-memory concurrency. We examine two real-world examples from the…