Snowman Merkle Airdrop

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

Airdrop claim uses live balanceOf in the merkle leaf: a 1-wei Snow transfer permanently bricks a recipient's claim

Root + Impact

Description

claimSnowman derives the claim amount from the recipient's LIVE balance at call time and uses it in BOTH the signed EIP-712 message (getMessageHash) AND the merkle leaf:

uint256 amount = i_snow.balanceOf(receiver); // @> live balance
bytes32 leaf = keccak256(bytes.concat(keccak256(abi.encode(receiver, amount)))); // @> leaf uses it

But the merkle tree is a FIXED snapshot built with each recipient's allocation amount. A claim only succeeds while balanceOf(receiver) exactly equals the snapshot amount.

Risk

Likelihood: High

  • Snow is a freely transferable ERC20. Anyone can send 1 wei of Snow to a recipient (or the recipient earns/buys more via earnSnow/buySnow), moving their balance off the snapshot amount. An attacker can front-run / re-grief persistently.

Impact: High

  • The recipient can no longer claim: both the signed digest and the merkle leaf recompute with the new balance, and NO merkle leaf exists for the new amount. Their Snowman NFT airdrop is denied. Any recipient who uses the protocol's own weekly faucet after the snapshot is locked out by default.

Proof of Concept

Forge test (PASSES):

function test_FNEW2_balance_grief_locks_claim() public {
bytes32[] memory emptyProof = new bytes32[](0);
bytes32 digest = airdrop.getMessageHash(recipient);
(uint8 v, bytes32 r, bytes32 s) = vm.sign(recipientPk, digest); // valid for balance == 1
vm.prank(attacker); snow.buySnow{value: 1 ether}(1);
vm.prank(attacker); snow.transfer(recipient, 1); // balance now 2 != leaf(1)
vm.expectRevert(); airdrop.claimSnowman(recipient, emptyProof, v, r, s);
bytes32 d2 = airdrop.getMessageHash(recipient);
(uint8 v2, bytes32 r2, bytes32 s2) = vm.sign(recipientPk, d2);
vm.expectRevert(SnowmanAirdrop.SA__InvalidProof.selector); // no leaf for amount 2
airdrop.claimSnowman(recipient, emptyProof, v2, r2, s2);
assertEq(snowman.balanceOf(recipient), 0); // permanently cannot claim
}

Result: [PASS] - a 1-wei Snow transfer locks the recipient's claim.

Recommended Mitigation

Bind eligibility to a FIXED snapshot allocation, not live balance: pass amount in, include it in the merkle leaf, and require balanceOf(receiver) >= amount:

- uint256 amount = i_snow.balanceOf(receiver);
+ // `amount` is passed in and verified against the merkle leaf (snapshot allocation)
+ if (i_snow.balanceOf(receiver) < amount) revert SA__ZeroAmount();
Updates

Lead Judging Commences

ai-first-flight-judge Lead Judge about 2 hours ago
Submission Judgement Published
Validated
Assigned finding tags:

[M-01] DoS to a user trying to claim a Snowman

# Root + Impact ## Description * Users will approve a specific amount of Snow to the SnowmanAirdrop and also sign a message with their address and that same amount, in order to be able to claim the NFT * Because the current amount of Snow owned by the user is used in the verification, an attacker could forcefully send Snow to the receiver in a front-running attack, to prevent the receiver from claiming the NFT.&#x20; ```Solidity function getMessageHash(address receiver) public view returns (bytes32) { ... // @audit HIGH An attacker could send 1 wei of Snow token to the receiver and invalidate the signature, causing the receiver to never be able to claim their Snowman uint256 amount = i_snow.balanceOf(receiver); return _hashTypedDataV4( keccak256(abi.encode(MESSAGE_TYPEHASH, SnowmanClaim({receiver: receiver, amount: amount}))) ); ``` ## Risk **Likelihood**: * The attacker must purchase Snow and forcefully send it to the receiver in a front-running attack, so the likelihood is Medium **Impact**: * The impact is High as it could lock out the receiver from claiming forever ## Proof of Concept The attack consists on Bob sending an extra Snow token to Alice before Satoshi claims the NFT on behalf of Alice. To showcase the risk, the extra Snow is earned for free by Bob. ```Solidity function testDoSClaimSnowman() public { assert(snow.balanceOf(alice) == 1); // Get alice's digest while the amount is still 1 bytes32 alDigest = airdrop.getMessageHash(alice); // alice signs a message (uint8 alV, bytes32 alR, bytes32 alS) = vm.sign(alKey, alDigest); vm.startPrank(bob); vm.warp(block.timestamp + 1 weeks); snow.earnSnow(); assert(snow.balanceOf(bob) == 2); snow.transfer(alice, 1); // Alice claim test assert(snow.balanceOf(alice) == 2); vm.startPrank(alice); snow.approve(address(airdrop), 1); // satoshi calls claims on behalf of alice using her signed message vm.startPrank(satoshi); vm.expectRevert(); airdrop.claimSnowman(alice, AL_PROOF, alV, alR, alS); } ``` ## Recommended Mitigation Include the amount to be claimed in both `getMessageHash` and `claimSnowman` instead of reading it from the Snow contract. Showing only the new code in the section below ```Python function claimSnowman(address receiver, uint256 amount, bytes32[] calldata merkleProof, uint8 v, bytes32 r, bytes32 s) external nonReentrant { ... bytes32 leaf = keccak256(bytes.concat(keccak256(abi.encode(receiver, amount)))); if (!MerkleProof.verify(merkleProof, i_merkleRoot, leaf)) { revert SA__InvalidProof(); } // @audit LOW Seems like using the ERC20 permit here would allow for both the delegation of the claim and the transfer of the Snow tokens in one transaction i_snow.safeTransferFrom(receiver, address(this), amount); // send ... } ```

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