Snowman Merkle Airdrop

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

Snowman::mintSnowman has no access control, allowing anyone to mint unlimited NFTs for free

Root + Impact

Description

  • Normally, Snowman NFTs should only be minted through the SnowmanAirdrop contract, as a reward for users who stake their Snow tokens and pass Merkle proof + signature verification.

  • Snowman::mintSnowman is declared external with no access restriction, so any address can call it directly and mint an arbitrary number of NFTs to any recipient, completely bypassing the staking/airdrop mechanism.

function mintSnowman(address receiver, uint256 amount) external {
@> // @> no access control modifier present here
for (uint256 i = 0; i < amount; i++) {
_safeMint(receiver, s_TokenCounter);
emit SnowmanMinted(receiver, s_TokenCounter);
s_TokenCounter++;
}
}

Risk

Likelihood:

  • Any external account calls mintSnowman(attacker, largeAmount) directly, without ever staking Snow or holding a valid proof, since the function is public and unguarded.

  • This can happen in a single transaction, at any point after deployment, with no cost beyond gas.

Impact:

  • Total supply of Snowman becomes unbounded and disconnected from actual stakers, destroying scarcity.

  • The entire staking/Merkle distribution mechanism becomes irrelevant since it can be fully bypassed.

Proof of Concept

Explanation: This test simulates an attacker who has never interacted with Snow or SnowmanAirdrop at all — no tokens staked, no allocation, no proof. It calls mintSnowman directly on the deployed Snowman contract with an arbitrary large amount. Because the function performs no caller check, the call executes successfully and mints 1,000,000 NFTs straight to the attacker. The final assertion confirms the attacker's balance reflects the full minted amount, proving the bypass is real and not just a theoretical gap.
function test_anyoneCanMintUnlimitedSnowman() public {
address attacker = makeAddr("attacker");
assertEq(nft.balanceOf(attacker), 0);
vm.prank(attacker);
nft.mintSnowman(attacker, 1_000_000); // no Snow staked, no proof, no signature
assertEq(nft.balanceOf(attacker), 1_000_000);
}
Test passes against the unmodified contract, i.e., the exploit succeeds with zero preconditions.

Recommended Mitigation

Explanation: The root cause is that Snowman trusts any caller instead of trusting only the contract responsible for validating eligibility (SnowmanAirdrop). The fix stores the airdrop contract's address at deployment and restricts mintSnowman to that single caller. This is preferable to an onlyOwner restriction because the owner shouldn't be minting NFTs directly either — only the airdrop logic (stake check + Merkle proof + signature) should ever trigger a mint. A trade-off is that Snowman and SnowmanAirdrop now have a circular-ish deployment dependency, which is why the mitigation below wires the address through the constructor and assumes Snowman is deployed with the pre-computed or already-deployed SnowmanAirdrop address (alternatively, a one-time setAirdrop() callable only once by the owner can be used if deployment order can't be changed).
+ error SM__NotAuthorized();
+
+ address private immutable i_airdrop;
+
+ constructor(string memory _SnowmanSvgUri, address _airdrop) ERC721("Snowman Airdrop", "SNOWMAN") Ownable(msg.sender) {
+ i_airdrop = _airdrop;
s_TokenCounter = 0;
s_SnowmanSvgUri = _SnowmanSvgUri;
}
function mintSnowman(address receiver, uint256 amount) external {
+ if (msg.sender != i_airdrop) {
+ revert SM__NotAuthorized();
+ }
for (uint256 i = 0; i < amount; i++) {
_safeMint(receiver, s_TokenCounter);
emit SnowmanMinted(receiver, s_TokenCounter);
s_TokenCounter++;
}
}
Re-running the PoC test after this change should now revert with SM__NotAuthorized, while calls originating from SnowmanAirdrop continue to succeed as before.
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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