Insecure minEth Configuration Risking Order Execution Failures
Summary
The minEth variable in GmxProxy (defaulting to 0.002 ETH) ensures sufficient ETH balance for execution fees, but there’s no validation or dynamic adjustment to account for gas price fluctuations or GMX requirements. If minEth is set too low or not updated, createOrder or settle could fail due to insufficient ETH, stalling critical operations.
Vulnerability Details
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minEth is initialized to 0.002 ETH and can be updated by the owner:
solidity
function setMinEth(uint256 _minEth) external onlyOwner {minEth = _minEth;} -
The lowerThanMinEth function checks address(this).balance >= minEth, but there’s no mechanism to dynamically adjust minEth based on current gas prices, execution fees, or GMX requirements.
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If gas prices rise or execution fees increase, minEth could become insufficient, causing createOrder or settle to revert with “insufficient eth balance,” halting operations.
Impact
Order Execution Failures: Insufficient ETH could prevent createOrder or settle from executing, delaying position updates, withdrawals, or settlements and potentially triggering liquidations.
Operational Delays: Stalled operations could lead to financial losses, missed opportunities, or user dissatisfaction.
Owner Dependency: The owner must manually update minEth, introducing centralization risks and potential downtime.
Tools Used
Manual code review
Recommendations
Implement dynamic adjustment of minEth based on current gas prices and execution fee estimates. Add a function with safeguards.
Lead Judging Commences
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."
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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