Snowman Merkle Airdrop

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

Missing Access Control on mintSnowman Allows Anyone to Mint Unlimited NFTs

Root + Impact

Description

  • Normal behavior: The mintSnowman function should only be callable by the

    SnowmanAirdrop contract after users have proven eligibility via Merkle proofs and signatures, ensuring NFTs are distributed fairly to eligible participants.

  • Specific issue: The mintSnowman function has no access control modifier, allowing any external caller to mint unlimited NFTs to any address without staking Snow tokens, providing Merkle proofs, or signatures.

// Root cause in src/Snowman.sol:36-44
@> function mintSnowman(address receiver, uint256 amount) external {
// @> No access control - anyone can call this function
for (uint256 i = 0; i < amount; i++) {
_safeMint(receiver, s_TokenCounter);
emit SnowmanMinted(receiver, s_TokenCounter);
s_TokenCounter++;
}
}

Risk

Likelihood:

  • Any external account can call mintSnowman directly on the Snowman contract

  • No authorization check exists, making exploitation trivial and guaranteed to succeed

Impact:

  • Complete bypass of the airdrop mechanism - NFTs lose all scarcity and value

  • Attackers can mint unlimited NFTs without holding any Snow tokens

  • The entire token economics of the protocol is broken

Proof of Concept

  • The following test demonstrates that any address can call mintSnowman() directly on the Snowman contract and receive NFTs without holding any Snow tokens, providing a Merkle proof, or a valid signature.

function test_mintSnowman() public {
address attacker = makeAddr("attacker");
// Attacker has no Snow tokens, no merkle proof, no signature
assertEq(snow.balanceOf(attacker), 0);
assertEq(nft.balanceOf(attacker), 0);
// But the attacker can directly call mintSnowman on the NFT contract
vm.prank(attacker);
nft.mintSnowman(attacker, 100); // Mint 100 NFTs without any authorization!
// Attack succeeds - attacker now owns 100 NFTs
assertEq(nft.balanceOf(attacker), 100);
}

Recommended Mitigation

  • Add access control to restrict mintSnowman it to only be callable by the SnowmanAirdrop contract. Storethe airdrop contract address as an immutable variable set in the constructor, and add a check at the beginning of mintSnowman that reverts if the caller is not the airdrop contract.

+ error Snowman__NotAirdropContract();
+ address private immutable i_airdropContract;
+ constructor(address airdropContract) ERC721("Snowman Airdrop", "SNOWMAN") {
+ i_airdropContract = airdropContract;
+ }
function mintSnowman(address receiver, uint256 amount) external {
+ if (msg.sender != i_airdropContract) {
+ revert Snowman__NotAirdropContract();
+ }
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 1 day 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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