Snowman Merkle Airdrop

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

Missing access control on `Snowman::mintSnowman` allows anyone to mint unlimited NFTs for free, bypassing the airdrop

Description

In the Snowman protocol, Snowman NFTs are meant to be minted ONLY through the SnowmanAirdrop contract, as a reward for users who stake their Snow tokens. A legitimate user receives a number of NFTs equal to the Snow balance they earned or bought, and only after passing a Merkle-proof and EIP-712 signature check.

However, Snowman::mintSnowman is declared external and contains no access control. It never checks whether the caller is the airdrop contract, the owner, or any authorized minter. As a result, any arbitrary address can call mintSnowman(receiver, amount) directly and mint any number of NFTs, without owning a single Snow token, without staking, and without providing a Merkle proof or signature. Because the function loops amount times calling _safeMint, the attacker fully controls both the recipient and the quantity minted.

Risk

Likelihood: High

  • The function is external and callable by anyone, at any time, in a single transaction.

  • No preconditions: no Snow balance, no proof, and no signature are required.

Impact: High

  • An attacker can mint unlimited Snowman NFTs for free, completely bypassing the airdrop's staking mechanism.

  • The scarcity and integrity of the NFT collection are destroyed, rendering the entire airdrop worthless.

Proof of Concept

The following Foundry test deploys Snowman and shows that an attacker who owns zero Snow can mint 100 NFTs for free:

// SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
pragma solidity ^0.8.24;

import {Test} from "forge-std/Test.sol";
import {Snowman} from "../src/Snowman.sol";
import {DeploySnowman} from "../script/DeploySnowman.s.sol";

contract PoCSnowmanAccessControl is Test {
Snowman nft;
address attacker = makeAddr("attacker");

function setUp() public {
nft = new DeploySnowman().run();
}
function test_AnyoneCanMintSnowman() public {
assertEq(nft.balanceOf(attacker), 0);
vm.prank(attacker);
nft.mintSnowman(attacker, 100);
assertEq(nft.balanceOf(attacker), 100); // 100 free NFTs, zero Snow staked
}

}

Recommended Mitigation

Restrict minting to the airdrop contract by storing its address and reverting any other caller. The contract already declares an unused SM__NotAllowed error, which we reuse:

  • address private s_airdrop;


  • function setAirdrop(address _airdrop) external onlyOwner {


  • s_airdrop = _airdrop;
  • }

    function mintSnowman(address receiver, uint256 amount) external {


  • if (msg.sender != s_airdrop) {

  • revert SM__NotAllowed();

  • }
    for (uint256 i = 0; i < amount; i++) {
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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