Puppy Raffle

AI First Flight #1
Beginner FriendlyFoundrySolidityNFT
EXP
View results
Submission Details
Severity: medium
Valid

Quadratic duplicate detection enables gas-based denial of service on raffle entry

Root + Impact

Description

  • enterRaffle() appends all new players to the players array and then performs a nested loop over the entire array to detect duplicates.

  • This duplicate check is O(n^2) with respect to the number of active entries.

  • As the raffle grows, the gas cost of entering rises sharply, and eventually additional calls can become too expensive to execute within block gas limits.

  • A malicious actor can intentionally bloat the player list with many funded entries, making later participation impractical or impossible for honest users.

function enterRaffle(address[] memory newPlayers) public payable {
require(msg.value == entranceFee * newPlayers.length, "PuppyRaffle: Must send enough to enter raffle");
for (uint256 i = 0; i < newPlayers.length; i++) {
players.push(newPlayers[i]);
}
// Check for duplicates
@> for (uint256 i = 0; i < players.length - 1; i++) {
@> for (uint256 j = i + 1; j < players.length; j++) {
@> require(players[i] != players[j], "PuppyRaffle: Duplicate player");
}
}
emit RaffleEnter(newPlayers);
}

Risk

Likelihood:

  • The attack uses only public functionality and scales with normal contract usage.

  • An attacker only needs enough capital to buy many entries.

Impact:

  • Honest users can be priced out of entering due to gas costs.

  • The raffle can effectively freeze until the current round is resolved.

Proof of Concept

// 1. Attacker repeatedly enters many unique addresses into the raffle
// 2. The players array grows large
// 3. A later user attempts to enter with one or more addresses
// 4. enterRaffle() performs a full quadratic duplicate scan over the entire array
// 5. The transaction becomes prohibitively expensive or runs out of gas

Recommended Mitigation

If batch entry is required, maintain a mapping of active entrants and update it as users enter, refund, and settle.

-for (uint256 i = 0; i < players.length - 1; i++) {
- for (uint256 j = i + 1; j < players.length; j++) {
- require(players[i] != players[j], "PuppyRaffle: Duplicate player");
- }
-}
+// Track active entries in O(1) with a mapping
+require(!isActivePlayer[newPlayer], "PuppyRaffle: Duplicate player");
+isActivePlayer[newPlayer] = true;
Updates

Lead Judging Commences

ai-first-flight-judge Lead Judge about 2 hours ago
Submission Judgement Published
Validated
Assigned finding tags:

[M-01] `PuppyRaffle: enterRaffle` Use of gas extensive duplicate check leads to Denial of Service, making subsequent participants to spend much more gas than prev ones to enter

## Description `enterRaffle` function uses gas inefficient duplicate check that causes leads to Denial of Service, making subsequent participants to spend much more gas than previous users to enter. ## Vulnerability Details In the `enterRaffle` function, to check duplicates, it loops through the `players` array. As the `player` array grows, it will make more checks, which leads the later user to pay more gas than the earlier one. More users in the Raffle, more checks a user have to make leads to pay more gas. ## Impact As the arrays grows significantly over time, it will make the function unusable due to block gas limit. This is not a fair approach and lead to bad user experience. ## POC In existing test suit, add this test to see the difference b/w gas for users. once added run `forge test --match-test testEnterRaffleIsGasInefficient -vvvvv` in terminal. you will be able to see logs in terminal. ```solidity function testEnterRaffleIsGasInefficient() public { vm.startPrank(owner); vm.txGasPrice(1); /// First we enter 100 participants uint256 firstBatch = 100; address[] memory firstBatchPlayers = new address[](firstBatch); for(uint256 i = 0; i < firstBatchPlayers; i++) { firstBatch[i] = address(i); } uint256 gasStart = gasleft(); puppyRaffle.enterRaffle{value: entranceFee * firstBatch}(firstBatchPlayers); uint256 gasEnd = gasleft(); uint256 gasUsedForFirstBatch = (gasStart - gasEnd) * txPrice; console.log("Gas cost of the first 100 partipants is:", gasUsedForFirstBatch); /// Now we enter 100 more participants uint256 secondBatch = 200; address[] memory secondBatchPlayers = new address[](secondBatch); for(uint256 i = 100; i < secondBatchPlayers; i++) { secondBatch[i] = address(i); } gasStart = gasleft(); puppyRaffle.enterRaffle{value: entranceFee * secondBatch}(secondBatchPlayers); gasEnd = gasleft(); uint256 gasUsedForSecondBatch = (gasStart - gasEnd) * txPrice; console.log("Gas cost of the next 100 participant is:", gasUsedForSecondBatch); vm.stopPrank(owner); } ``` ## Recommendations Here are some of recommendations, any one of that can be used to mitigate this risk. 1. User a mapping to check duplicates. For this approach you to declare a variable `uint256 raffleID`, that way each raffle will have unique id. Add a mapping from player address to raffle id to keep of users for particular round. ```diff + uint256 public raffleID; + mapping (address => uint256) public usersToRaffleId; . . function enterRaffle(address[] memory newPlayers) public payable { require(msg.value == entranceFee * newPlayers.length, "PuppyRaffle: Must send enough to enter raffle"); for (uint256 i = 0; i < newPlayers.length; i++) { players.push(newPlayers[i]); + usersToRaffleId[newPlayers[i]] = true; } // Check for duplicates + for (uint256 i = 0; i < newPlayers.length; i++){ + require(usersToRaffleId[i] != raffleID, "PuppyRaffle: Already a participant"); - for (uint256 i = 0; i < players.length - 1; i++) { - for (uint256 j = i + 1; j < players.length; j++) { - require(players[i] != players[j], "PuppyRaffle: Duplicate player"); - } } emit RaffleEnter(newPlayers); } . . . function selectWinner() external { //Existing code + raffleID = raffleID + 1; } ``` 2. Allow duplicates participants, As technically you can't stop people participants more than once. As players can use new address to enter. ```solidity function enterRaffle(address[] memory newPlayers) public payable { require(msg.value == entranceFee * newPlayers.length, "PuppyRaffle: Must send enough to enter raffle"); for (uint256 i = 0; i < newPlayers.length; i++) { players.push(newPlayers[i]); } emit RaffleEnter(newPlayers); } ```

Support

FAQs

Can't find an answer? Chat with us on Discord, Twitter or Linkedin.

Give us feedback!