Puppy Raffle

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

O(n²) Duplicate Check Enables Gas DoS on enterRaffle()

O(n²) Duplicate Check Enables Gas DoS on enterRaffle()

Description

  • Players call enterRaffle() with a list of addresses to join the raffle, paying the entrance fee per address.

  • The duplicate check iterates over the entire players array with a nested loop on every new entry. An attacker enters a large batch of addresses in one
    transaction, causing all subsequent enterRaffle() calls to consume so much gas they exceed the block gas limit and revert permanently.

// @> Nested loop iterates over ALL existing players on every new entry
for (uint256 i = 0; i < players.length - 1; i++) {
for (uint256 j = i + 1; j < players.length; j++) {
// @> O(n^2) complexity — ~500 players exceeds block gas limit
require(players[i] != players[j], "PuppyRaffle: Duplicate player");
}
}

Risk

Likelihood:

  • A single attacker transaction entering a large batch of unique addresses permanently blocks all future entries for that raffle round.

  • The attack resets each round when delete players is called, so the attacker must repeat it each round — but the cost is low compared to the damage caused.

Impact:

  • No new players can enter the raffle after the attack, permanently denying participation to honest users.

  • The protocol loses all future entrance fee revenue until redeployment.

Proof of Concept

Gas cost grows quadratically with the number of players. The test below demonstrates the growth — at approximately 500 players the gas cost exceeds the Ethereum
block gas limit of 30 million, making all future calls revert:

function test_DoS_QuadraticLoop() public {
uint256[] memory sizes = new uint256;
sizes[0] = 10; sizes[1] = 50; sizes[2] = 100;
for (uint256 s = 0; s bool) private _isEntered;

function enterRaffle(address[] memory newPlayers) public payable {
    require(msg.value == entranceFee * newPlayers.length, "...");                                                                                             
    for (uint256 i = 0; i < newPlayers.length; i++) {                                                                                                         
  •     require(!_isEntered[newPlayers[i]], "PuppyRaffle: Duplicate player");
    
  •     _isEntered[newPlayers[i]] = true;                                                                                                                     
        players.push(newPlayers[i]);                                                                                                                        
    }                                                                                                                                                         
    
  • 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");                                                                               
    
  •     }
    
  • }                                                                                                                                                         
    

    }

Updates

Lead Judging Commences

ai-first-flight-judge Lead Judge about 4 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); } ```

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