Puppy Raffle

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

O(n²) Duplicate Check in `enterRaffle()` Enables Denial-of-Service

Description

  • enterRaffle() checks for duplicate addresses by iterating over every existing player for each new entrant, producing O(n²) gas scaling.

  • As the player array grows, the cost of entering eventually exceeds the block gas limit, permanently blocking new entries. An attacker can accelerate this by registering many cheap dummy addresses.

for (uint256 i = 0; i < newPlayers.length; i++) {
players.push(newPlayers[i]);
}
// @> Nested loop: O(n²) cost — grows unboundedly with player count
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");
}
}

Risk

Likelihood:

  • Gas cost rises with every legitimate entry; the DoS occurs organically at scale without any attacker

  • An adversary can deliberately flood the array with funded dummy addresses to trigger the DoS early

Impact:

  • New participants cannot enter once the gas cost exceeds the block limit, halting the raffle indefinitely

  • An attacker who enters early can lock out all other participants and improve their own odds

Proof of Concept

The test below shows that a second batch of 100 players costs dramatically more gas than the first, demonstrating how cost explodes as players.length grows. At ~1,000 total players, the call reverts entirely due to the block gas limit.

function test_dosEnterRaffle() public {
// First 100 players — manageable cost
address[] memory batch1 = new address[](100);
for (uint256 i = 0; i < 100; i++) batch1[i] = address(uint160(i + 1));
puppyRaffle.enterRaffle{value: entranceFee * 100}(batch1);
// Second 100 players — gas cost has grown significantly
address[] memory batch2 = new address[](100);
for (uint256 i = 0; i < 100; i++) batch2[i] = address(uint160(i + 101));
puppyRaffle.enterRaffle{value: entranceFee * 100}(batch2); // far more expensive
}

Recommended Mitigation

Replace the nested loop with a mapping for O(1) duplicate detection.

+ mapping(address => bool) public isPlayer;
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++) {
+ require(!isPlayer[newPlayers[i]], "PuppyRaffle: Duplicate player");
+ isPlayer[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");
- }
- }
emit RaffleEnter(newPlayers);
}

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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