Snowman Merkle Airdrop

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

mintSnowman Missing Access Control Allows Unrestricted NFT Minting

mintSnowman Missing Access Control Allows Unrestricted NFT Minting

Description

The airdrop design requires users to burn Snow tokens via SnowmanAirdrop.claimSnowman to receive Snowman NFTs. The Snowman.mintSnowman function is the sole mint entry point and is intended to be called only by the airdrop contract. However, mintSnowman has no access control; it is external and callable by any address. An attacker can call mintSnowman(attacker, amount) directly and mint unlimited Snowman NFTs without burning any Snow or going through Merkle/signature verification.

// @> Root cause: no access control; any address can call
function 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):

  • No authentication or authorization is required; a single transaction can mint any amount.

  • Attack is trivial to execute; no special conditions or setup needed.

Impact (high):

  • Unlimited Snowman NFTs can be minted without burning Snow.

  • Airdrop economics and scarcity are broken; legitimate claimers' allocations are diluted.

  • Protocol invariant (1 Snow → 1 Snowman via airdrop) is violated.

Severity (high):

Proof of Concept

  1. Attacker calls Snowman.mintSnowman(attacker, 1000).

  2. Contract mints 1000 Snowman NFTs to the attacker.

  3. No Snow is burned; no Merkle proof or signature is checked.

  4. Attacker receives NFTs intended only for airdrop participants.

// Attacker mints without going through airdrop
snowman.mintSnowman(attacker, 1000); // succeeds; no Snow burned

Recommended Mitigation

Restrict mintSnowman to the SnowmanAirdrop contract only. Use a setter since Snowman is deployed before the airdrop.

+ address private s_snowmanAirdrop;
constructor(string memory _SnowmanSvgUri) ERC721("Snowman Airdrop", "SNOWMAN") Ownable(msg.sender) {
s_SnowmanSvgUri = _SnowmanSvgUri;
}
+ function setSnowmanAirdrop(address _airdrop) external onlyOwner {
+ s_snowmanAirdrop = _airdrop;
+ }
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++;
}
}

Alternatively, use OpenZeppelin's AccessControl and grant the MINTER_ROLE to the airdrop contract.

Updates

Lead Judging Commences

ai-first-flight-judge Lead Judge about 12 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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