Puppy Raffle

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

Duplicate Check Causes Gas DoS

Root + Impact

Description

The enterRaffle() function enforces uniqueness by performing a nested loop over the entire players array:

@> for (uint256 i = 0; i < players.length - 1; i++) {
@> for (uint256 j = i + 1; j < players.length; j++) {
@> require(players[i] != players[j]);
}
}

As the players array grows, gas consumption increases quadratically until the function becomes un-callable within block gas limits.

Risk

Likelihood:

  • Attack requires no special permissions

  • Can be triggered by a single transaction

  • No upper bound on players.length

Impact:

  • enterRaffle() becomes permanently unusable

  • No new participants can join

  • Raffle cannot progress

  • Protocol enters a deadlocked state

This is a permanent denial of service once the array reaches sufficient size.

Proof of Concept

The following POC proves that the duplication check consumes a lot of gas leading to DoS and making the function unusable. Once a large number of players are added, more players can not be added due tot DoS.

function testGasDos() public {
address[] memory players = new address[](500);
for(uint i=0; i< players.length; i++){
players[i] = address(i+1);
}
puppyRaffle.enterRaffle{value: entranceFee * players.length}(players);
address[] memory morePlayers = new address[](1000);
for(uint j=0; j< morePlayers.length; j++){
morePlayers[j] = address(j+2001);
}
vm.expectRevert();
puppyRaffle.enterRaffle{value: entranceFee * morePlayers.length}(morePlayers);
}

Recommended Mitigation

Track uniqueness using a mapping:

+ mapping(address => bool) entered;

Reject duplicates before pushing to storage

Perform validation in O(n) or O(1). This help s in verifying the duplicates and also does not cause DoS

Updates

Lead Judging Commences

ai-first-flight-judge Lead Judge 1 day 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); } ```

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