The importance of Smart Contracts Security Audits
Posted By : Priyansha Sinha | 30-Aug-2018
Smart Contracts were originally envisioned in 1994 as legal agreements enacted in the computer codes for the sole purpose of automating the whole process. However, the recent surge in the blockchain technology has upended the overall system and it is pretty much happening in the real world now.
Smart Contracts on the blockchain can be accessed publicly and are immutable. Meaning, anyone can gain access to it but can’t make any alteration or modification in the saved data. This has somehow led to interesting security challenges and few use cases have made it imperative to perform smart contracts security audits externally.
Why Are The Smart Contracts Security Audits So Crucial?
Dealing with smart contracts security and solidness is a serious concern in the present day. Inefficiency, misconduct and security flaws turn out to be very expensive in the course of deploying smart contracts over blockchain. Enterprises are majorly worried for their smart contracts code because once if it runs, there is no looking back as the whole system is irreversible and the money can be stuck in the blockchain and vanish forever.
Thus, in order to make sure that the code is formulated accurately, the businesses usually look out for external auditors because they know that even a single amount of error in their code would cost them a huge chunk of money if the audits are skipped. The smart contracts are used to store, transfer, and distribute funds, therefore, the errors in the code and their overall design should be nullified. Further to this, the mystifying appearances of ICOs and with their massive boom in the past few years, the smart contracts security audits have turned out to be one of the most sought-after blockchain technology services today.
Few Smart Contracts Attacks and Vulnerabilities Suffered:
- Reentrancy Attacks
- Short Address Attacks
- Reordering Attacks
- Replay Attacks
- Stack Overflow and Underflow
Most Smart Contracts Security Audits are Now Happening For ICOs. Why?
Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), sometimes also referred to as “token sales”, most smart contracts security audits are performed over the token and crowd sale aspects. The companies dealing with ICOs are more dominant and active in their idea implementation and more likely seem to be some serious projects with the basic intentions of formulating a work-role. The tokens are by far more valuable beyond raising funds and adds more importance to the sole concept and existence of the blockchain technology.
What Happens If the Smart Contracts Are Designed Poorly?
The most common and attentional issue in the modern software development as a whole, is the over-engineering and high complexity of the smart contracts, especially when they are formulated by a group of multiple programmers. Many users permit it in the form of a tradeoff for the purpose of a quick deployment. However, the said things are totally not tradeable in the case of smart contracts security development and the high complexity simply elevates the functional areas of the exploits. Furthermore, it reduces the audibility aspect and parallelly enhances the resources implemented by the environments such as Gas in the case of Ethereum which are usually very expensive and limited at the same time.
A Final Note
The complexity and the mere nature of smart contracts make the Security Audits a necessity. The procedure is neither easy nor quick and the blockchain technology-based projects should manage both budget and time in order to carry out external Smart Contract Security Audits. What are your thoughts about it? Let us know by writing down in the comment section below. And in case if you are looking out for smart contracts auditor, we can surely help you with that as well! You can contact us for all the related queries.
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About Author
Priyansha Sinha
Priyansha is a Content Developer and Writer with almost 2 years of experience. Besides, she is a trained vocalist and pianist with an enormous love for photography.