Puppy Raffle

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

[M-1] Denial-of-Service (DoS) via unbounded loop in `PuppyRaffle::enterRaffle()`

Denial-of-Service (DoS) via unbounded loop in PuppyRaffle::enterRaffle()

Risk

Severity: Medium

Likelihood: Medium

Overall: Medium

Description

The protocol checks for duplicate player entries in the raffle using a for-loop mechanism. This creates quadratic gas growth that leads to a denial-of-service condition where no users can enter raffle and potentially exhaust (at ~242 players - 30,231,676 gas) the block gas limit.

function enterRaffle(address[] memory newPlayers) public payable {
// ...
// Loops through array list of players
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);
//...
}

Impact

At ~242 players, the gas cost to enter the raffle would exceed (30,231,676 gas consumed) the Ethereum block gas limit (30,000,000 gas) which will make the contract unusable. All subsequent entry attempts would revert unconditionally.

An attacker can deliberately flood the players array with bot addresses using a single transaction, permanently DoS'ing the raffle for all legitimate participants at the cost of 242 ETH in entrance fees — which may be recoverable via refund().

Proof of Concept

function test_dosOnEnterRaffle() public {
// Add funds to the contract
vm.deal(address(this), entranceFee * 1000);
// Create addresses for test users
// ~242 users will exhaust the block gas limit (30 000 000)
address[] memory testUsers = new address[](242);
for(uint256 i = 0; i < 242; i++) {
testUsers[i] = address(uint160(i+1));
}
// 242 Users entered the raffle via enterRaffle()
// Entrance Fee = 1 ETH
// To enter the raffle: need to pay entranceFee x number of players (length)
puppyRaffle.enterRaffle{value: entranceFee * 242}(testUsers);
// Check if last test user address entered the raffle
assertEq(puppyRaffle.players(241), testUsers[241]);
// Check if contract received the ether
assertEq(address(puppyRaffle).balance, entranceFee * testUsers.length);
// Check if user is findable in the entry
assertEq(puppyRaffle.getActivePlayerIndex(testUsers[241]), 241);
}

Test output:

# Normal user entry: 1 user entered the raffle
[PASS] test_normalEnterRaffle() (gas: 72026)
# Running the test suite with 242 users
[PASS] test_dosOnEnterRaffle() (gas: 30231676)

Gas Growth Table

Players Gas consumed vs Block limit (30M)
1 72,026 0.2%
20 688,536 2.3%
100 10,826,665 36%
242 30,231,676 100.7% ← DoS threshold
1,000 858,140,068 2,860%

Recommended Mitigation

Replacing the nested loop with a mapping changes the complexity from O(n²) to O(n). Each new player check becomes a single mapping lookup instead of iterating the entire existing array, making the gas cost linear and bounded regardless of how many players have entered.

+ mapping(address => bool) public playerExists;
function enterRaffle(address[] memory newPlayers) public payable {
- 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");
- }
- }
+ for (uint256 i = 0; i < newPlayers.length; i++) {
+ require(!playerExists[newPlayers[i]], "PuppyRaffle: Duplicate player");
+ playerExists[newPlayers[i]] = true;
+ }
}
Updates

Lead Judging Commences

ai-first-flight-judge Lead Judge about 1 hour 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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