Puppy Raffle

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

# O(n²) duplicate check makes `enterRaffle` gas grow unbounded, exceeding the block gas limit (DoS)

O(n²) duplicate check makes enterRaffle gas grow unbounded, exceeding the block gas limit (DoS)

Severity: Medium

Description

  • enterRaffle rejects duplicate addresses. It does so with a nested loop that compares every player against every other player on each call.

  • The comparison count grows quadratically with players.length, and each comparison reads storage. As the array grows, the gas cost of a single enterRaffle transaction climbs until it cannot fit in a block.

// 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");
}
}

Risk

Likelihood:

  • Occurs as the raffle fills up: gas per entry rises with the square of the current player count, so later entrants pay dramatically more than earlier ones.

  • Occurs deliberately when an early participant enters a large batch to bloat the array, pushing subsequent entries above the block gas limit.

Impact:

  • Entering the raffle becomes impossible once a single enterRaffle transaction can no longer fit in a block — a denial of service that halts new entries.

  • Creates an unfair first-mover advantage: early entries are cheap, later ones are prohibitively expensive.

Proof of Concept

Save as test/DoSPoC.t.sol and run forge test --mt testQuadraticGasExceedsBlock. A single enterRaffle with 800 addresses consumes ~285,000,000 gas — over 9× a 30M mainnet block.

// SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
pragma solidity ^0.7.6;
pragma experimental ABIEncoderV2;
import {Test} from "forge-std/Test.sol";
import {PuppyRaffle} from "../src/PuppyRaffle.sol";
contract DoSPoC is Test {
PuppyRaffle puppyRaffle;
uint256 entranceFee = 1e18;
function setUp() public {
puppyRaffle = new PuppyRaffle(entranceFee, address(99), 1 days);
}
function testQuadraticGasExceedsBlock() public {
uint256 n = 800;
address[] memory players = new address[](n);
for (uint256 i = 0; i < n; i++) {
players[i] = address(uint160(i + 1));
}
vm.deal(address(this), n * entranceFee);
uint256 gasBefore = gasleft();
puppyRaffle.enterRaffle{value: n * entranceFee}(players);
uint256 gasUsed = gasBefore - gasleft();
assertGt(gasUsed, 30_000_000); // ~285M gas — cannot fit in a 30M block
}
}

Recommended Mitigation

Replace the nested loop with O(1) membership tracking via a mapping (reset per round when players is cleared).

+ 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]);
}
-
- // 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);
}

Clear the isPlayer flags on refund and when the round resets (delete players).

Updates

Lead Judging Commences

ai-first-flight-judge Lead Judge about 3 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!