Lines of code

https://github.com/code-423n4/2023-12-autonolas/blob/main/tokenomics/contracts/Tokenomics.sol#L264

Vulnerability details

Impact

Consider implementing these security checks to validate contract addresses in the Tokenomics contract. Ensuring ALL referenced contracts, such as IDonatorBlacklist, IErrorsTokenomics, IOLAS, IServiceRegistry, IToken, ITreasury, IVotingEscrow, and others, are legitimate and not zero addresses. Here's a summary of the changes and the rationale behind them:

Initialization Function Checks: Added checks in the initializeTokenomics function to ensure none of the contract addresses passed during initialization are zero. This is crucial because initializing with a zero address can lead to failures in contract interactions and potential vulnerabilities.
Setter Function Checks: Introduced similar checks in functions that update contract addresses. This prevents setting any critical contract address to zero after initialization, ensuring continued safe interaction with valid contracts.

Rationale for Changes:

Prevent Interaction with Invalid Contracts: Interacting with a zero or invalid address can lead to transaction failures or unintended behavior in the contract.
Enhance Contract Security: Ensuring that all contract addresses are valid before interaction is a basic and critical aspect of smart contract security.
Maintain System Integrity: By validating contract addresses, we maintain the integrity of the Tokenomics system, ensuring that all its components function as intended and interact with the correct external contracts.

Proof of Concept

The security checks implemented to validate contract addresses in the Tokenomics contract provide protection against several potential vulnerabilities and attacks:

Prevention of Interaction with Zero Addresses: Ensuring that contract addresses are not zero addresses is critical. Interaction with a zero address in certain contexts (like transferring tokens) can result in lost funds or tokens, essentially sending them to an address from which they cannot be retrieved.
Guarding Against Phishing or Scam Contracts: By verifying the legitimacy of contract addresses, the checks help prevent the contract from interacting with malicious contracts. This is particularly important in DeFi systems, where phishing or scam contracts might mimic legitimate ones.
Avoiding Unintended Contract Behavior: Contracts initialized with incorrect addresses can exhibit unpredictable or flawed behavior. Ensuring the validity of contract addresses helps maintain the contract's integrity and its intended logic.
Protection Against External Manipulation: In cases where contract addresses can be updated, ensuring that only valid addresses are set protects the system from being manipulated by attackers who might want to divert funds or alter the contract's behavior.
Preventing Loss of Funds: Interacting with invalid contract addresses can result in financial losses. For instance, if a token transfer is directed to an invalid address, the tokens might be irrecoverably lost.
Maintaining System Integrity and Trust: In a DeFi ecosystem, trust is paramount. Ensuring that all interactions are with legitimate and intended contracts helps in maintaining the overall trust in the system.
Reducing Attack Surface: By adding these checks, the contract reduces its attack surface – the number of potential points where an attacker could try to compromise the system.

In summary, these checks are essential in preventing interactions with invalid or malicious contracts, protecting the system from a range of potential attacks and vulnerabilities, and ensuring the overall reliability and security of the Tokenomics contract within its ecosystem.

Tools Used

VS code

Recommended Mitigation Steps

To implement security checks for the validation of contract addresses in the Tokenomics contract, you need to ensure that each address for contracts like IDonatorBlacklist, IErrorsTokenomics, IOLAS, IServiceRegistry, IToken, ITreasury, IVotingEscrow, is a legitimate, non-zero address. This can be done by introducing checks in the contract's initialization function and in any function that sets or updates these addresses. Here's an example of how you can implement these checks:

Initialization Function: In the contract's initialization function (like initializeTokenomics), where contract addresses are initially set, add checks to ensure none of the input addresses are zero.

function initializeTokenomics( address _olas, address _treasury, address _depository, address _dispenser, address _ve, uint256 _epochLen, address _componentRegistry, address _agentRegistry, address _serviceRegistry, address _donatorBlacklist ) external { // Validation of contract addresses require(_olas != address(0), "OLAS address cannot be zero"); require(_treasury != address(0), "Treasury address cannot be zero"); require(_depository != address(0), "Depository address cannot be zero"); require(_dispenser != address(0), "Dispenser address cannot be zero"); require(_ve != address(0), "VotingEscrow address cannot be zero"); require(_componentRegistry != address(0), "ComponentRegistry address cannot be zero"); require(_agentRegistry != address(0), "AgentRegistry address cannot be zero"); require(_serviceRegistry != address(0), "ServiceRegistry address cannot be zero"); require(_donatorBlacklist != address(0), "DonatorBlacklist address cannot be zero");

// ... rest of the initialization logic

}

Setter Functions: For any function that updates these addresses, add similar checks to prevent setting them to zero. For example:

function changeRegistryAddresses(address _componentRegistry, address _agentRegistry, address _serviceRegistry) external onlyOwner { require(_componentRegistry != address(0), "ComponentRegistry address cannot be zero"); require(_agentRegistry != address(0), "AgentRegistry address cannot be zero"); require(_serviceRegistry != address(0), "ServiceRegistry address cannot be zero");

componentRegistry = _componentRegistry;
agentRegistry = _agentRegistry;
serviceRegistry = _serviceRegistry;
// Emit event or additional logic

}

Deployment Script or External Validation: It’s also good practice to validate these addresses in any deployment scripts or through external means before interacting with the contract.

By implementing these checks, you ensure that the Tokenomics contract always interacts with legitimate and non-zero addresses, reducing the risk of errors and vulnerabilities related to invalid contract interactions.

Assessed type

Access Control

code-423n4 / 2023-12-autonolas-findings

Security checks for the validation to ensure that each address for contracts IDonatorBlacklist, IErrorsTokenomics, IOLAS, IServiceRegistry, IToken, ITreasury, IVotingEscrow for the Tokenomics contract #191