Snowman Merkle Airdrop

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

Anyone can mint arbitrary Snowman NFTs by calling mintSnowman directly

Description
The intended behavior is that Snowman NFTs should only be minted through the SnowmanAirdrop flow, where eligibility is gated by Snow ownership, Merkle proof verification, and a valid signature.

However, Snowman.mintSnowman() is exposed as an unrestricted external function and does not validate the caller at all. Because of this, any user can bypass the airdrop entirely and mint an arbitrary number of Snowman NFTs directly to any address.

This breaks the protocol’s core trust boundary. NFTs that are supposed to be distributed only to eligible stakers/claimants become freely mintable by any attacker.

Root + Impact
Normal behavior:
Snowman should be the final mint sink, while mint authority should only come from the validated airdrop/staking process in SnowmanAirdrop.

Specific issue:
In Snowman.sol, mintSnowman is external and has no onlyOwner, onlyAirdrop, or any equivalent caller restriction.

function mintSnowman(address receiver, uint256 amount) external {
for (uint256 i = 0; i < amount; i++) {
// @> No caller restriction before minting
_safeMint(receiver, s_TokenCounter);
emit SnowmanMinted(receiver, s_TokenCounter);
s_TokenCounter++;
}
}

Impact:
An attacker can mint unlimited Snowman NFTs without holding any Snow, without providing any Merkle proof, and without going through SnowmanAirdrop. This results in unauthorized asset minting and completely bypasses the intended NFT distribution logic.

Risk
Likelihood:

  1. The vulnerable function is directly callable by any external account.

  2. Exploitation requires no setup, no special permissions, and no protocol state preparation.

Impact:

  1. Any attacker can mint an arbitrary number of Snowman NFTs to themselves or any target address.

  2. The airdrop/staking distribution model is no longer enforced, so NFT issuance no longer reflects legitimate Snow holdings.

Proof of Concept

function testPublicCanMintArbitrarySnowmenWithoutSnowOrAirdropFlow() public {
address attacker = makeAddr("attacker");
assertEq(snow.balanceOf(attacker), 0);
assertEq(nft.balanceOf(attacker), 0);
vm.prank(attacker);
nft.mintSnowman(attacker, 50);
assertEq(nft.balanceOf(attacker), 50);
assertEq(nft.ownerOf(0), attacker);
assertEq(nft.ownerOf(49), attacker);
assertEq(nft.getTokenCounter(), 50);
}

PoC result:

  • The attacker starts with 0 Snow.

  • The attacker does not interact with SnowmanAirdrop.

  • A direct call to mintSnowman(attacker, 50) succeeds.

  • The attacker receives 50 NFTs immediately.

Recommended Mitigation
Restrict minting so that only the trusted airdrop contract can call mintSnowman.

+ address private immutable i_airdrop;
- constructor(string memory _SnowmanSvgUri) ERC721("Snowman Airdrop", "SNOWMAN") Ownable(msg.sender) {
+ constructor(string memory _SnowmanSvgUri, address airdrop) ERC721("Snowman Airdrop", "SNOWMAN") Ownable(msg.sender) {
+ require(airdrop != address(0), "zero airdrop");
s_TokenCounter = 0;
s_SnowmanSvgUri = _SnowmanSvgUri;
+ i_airdrop = airdrop;
}
+ modifier onlyAirdrop() {
+ require(msg.sender == i_airdrop, "not airdrop");
+ _;
+ }
- function mintSnowman(address receiver, uint256 amount) external {
+ function mintSnowman(address receiver, uint256 amount) external onlyAirdrop {
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 about 2 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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