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Gamma
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Submission Details
Severity: low
Invalid

Immutable PerpVault Address Design Flaw in GMXProxy

karl

Summary

A critical design flaw has been identified in the GMXProxy contract where the setPerpVault function implements a one-time-only setter pattern for the PerpVault address. This immutable design severely limits protocol upgradeability and poses significant operational risks.

Vulnerability Details

The vulnerability exists in the setPerpVault function of the GMXProxy contract:

​
function setPerpVault(address _perpVault, address market) external {
require(tx.origin == owner(), "not owner");
require(_perpVault != address(0), "zero address");
require(perpVault == address(0), "already set"); // Critical limitation
perpVault = _perpVault;
gExchangeRouter.setSavedCallbackContract(market, address(this));
}

The function contains significant issues :

  • The immutable design pattern (require(perpVault == address(0)))

Impact

** Upgrade Impossibility**

  • Cannot upgrade PerpVault contract even if vulnerabilities are discovered

  • No ability to implement protocol improvements requiring contract upgrades

  • Forces complete redeployment of GMXProxy for any PerpVault change

Emergency Response

  • No ability to respond to critical vulnerabilities in PerpVault

Tools Used

  • Manual code review

Recommendations

Remove this line of code :

require(perpVault == address(0), "already set");

Updates

Lead Judging Commences

n0kto Lead Judge 5 months ago
Submission Judgement Published
Invalidated
Reason: Design choice
Assigned finding tags:

Informational or Gas

Please read the CodeHawks documentation to know which submissions are valid. If you disagree, provide a coded PoC and explain the real likelihood and the detailed impact on the mainnet without any supposition (if, it could, etc) to prove your point.

Admin is trusted / Malicious keepers

Please read the CodeHawks documentation to know which submissions are valid. If you disagree, provide a coded PoC and explain the real likelihood and the detailed impact on the mainnet without any supposition (if, it could, etc) to prove your point. Keepers are added by the admin, there is no "malicious keeper" and if there is a problem in those keepers, that's out of scope. ReadMe and known issues states: " * System relies heavily on keeper for executing trades * Single keeper point of failure if not properly distributed * Malicious keeper could potentially front-run or delay transactions * Assume that Keeper will always have enough gas to execute transactions. There is a pay execution fee function, but the assumption should be that there's more than enough gas to cover transaction failures, retries, etc * There are two spot swap functionalies: (1) using GMX swap and (2) using Paraswap. We can assume that any swap failure will be retried until success. " " * Heavy dependency on GMX protocol functioning correctly * Owner can update GMX-related addresses * Changes in GMX protocol could impact system operations * We can assume that the GMX keeper won't misbehave, delay, or go offline. " "Issues related to GMX Keepers being DOS'd or losing functionality would be considered invalid."

n0kto Lead Judge 5 months ago
Submission Judgement Published
Invalidated
Reason: Design choice
Assigned finding tags:

Informational or Gas

Please read the CodeHawks documentation to know which submissions are valid. If you disagree, provide a coded PoC and explain the real likelihood and the detailed impact on the mainnet without any supposition (if, it could, etc) to prove your point.

Admin is trusted / Malicious keepers

Please read the CodeHawks documentation to know which submissions are valid. If you disagree, provide a coded PoC and explain the real likelihood and the detailed impact on the mainnet without any supposition (if, it could, etc) to prove your point. Keepers are added by the admin, there is no "malicious keeper" and if there is a problem in those keepers, that's out of scope. ReadMe and known issues states: " * System relies heavily on keeper for executing trades * Single keeper point of failure if not properly distributed * Malicious keeper could potentially front-run or delay transactions * Assume that Keeper will always have enough gas to execute transactions. There is a pay execution fee function, but the assumption should be that there's more than enough gas to cover transaction failures, retries, etc * There are two spot swap functionalies: (1) using GMX swap and (2) using Paraswap. We can assume that any swap failure will be retried until success. " " * Heavy dependency on GMX protocol functioning correctly * Owner can update GMX-related addresses * Changes in GMX protocol could impact system operations * We can assume that the GMX keeper won't misbehave, delay, or go offline. " "Issues related to GMX Keepers being DOS'd or losing functionality would be considered invalid."

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