Snowman Merkle Airdrop

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

Merkle proof and signature use live Snow balance instead of the snapshot amount, breaking claims after any balance change

Root + Impact

Description

Normal behavior: a Merkle tree is built from a fixed snapshot of each user's Snow balance (in this contest, 1 Snow per eligible address). claimSnowman() should verify that the claimant's (address, snapshotAmount) pair is in the tree and mint Snowman NFTs equal to that fixed amount.

Specific issue: both the signature digest (getMessageHash) and the Merkle leaf (claimSnowman) are computed from the user's current live balance (i_snow.balanceOf(receiver)) instead of the snapshot amount. Any change in the user's balance after the tree is built — buying more Snow, receiving a transfer, or an attacker donating a dust amount — makes the leaf mismatch the tree and the claim fails permanently.

// Root cause in the codebase with @> marks to highlight the relevant section
uint256 amount = i_snow.balanceOf(receiver); // @> live balance, not the snapshot amount from the Merkle tree
bytes32 leaf = keccak256(bytes.concat(keccak256(abi.encode(receiver, amount))));
if (!MerkleProof.verify(merkleProof, i_merkleRoot, leaf)) {
revert SA__InvalidProof();
}

Risk

Likelihood: High — balances change in the normal course of use (earn/buy/transfer), and any third party can force a change with a 1-token donation before the claim is made.

Impact: Medium — eligible users lose access to their airdrop permanently; an attacker can grief any recipient with a dust transfer.

Proof of Concept

// Run with: forge test --match-test testLiveBalanceBreaksClaim
function testLiveBalanceBreaksClaim() public {
vm.prank(alice);
snow.approve(address(airdrop), 2);
// Bob donates 1 Snow to Alice BEFORE her claim: live balance (2) != snapshot amount (1)
vm.prank(bob);
snow.transfer(alice, 1);
assertEq(snow.balanceOf(alice), 2);
// Alice signs the digest built from live balance (2); the proof is for (alice, 1)
bytes32 digest = airdrop.getMessageHash(alice);
(uint8 v, bytes32 r, bytes32 s) = vm.sign(alKey, digest);
vm.prank(satoshi);
vm.expectRevert(SnowmanAirdrop.SA__InvalidProof.selector);
airdrop.claimSnowman(alice, AL_PROOF, v, r, s);
}

Recommended Mitigation

+ function claimSnowman(address receiver, uint256 amount, bytes32[] calldata merkleProof, uint8 v, bytes32 r, bytes32 s) external {
- function claimSnowman(address receiver, bytes32[] calldata merkleProof, uint8 v, bytes32 r, bytes32 s) external {
+ // Use the fixed snapshot amount from the Merkle tree for both the leaf and the signature digest.
+ bytes32 leaf = keccak256(bytes.concat(keccak256(abi.encode(receiver, amount))));
- uint256 amount = i_snow.balanceOf(receiver);
- bytes32 leaf = keccak256(bytes.concat(keccak256(abi.encode(receiver, amount))));
+ // getMessageHash(receiver, amount) must also use the passed amount, not balanceOf.
}
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.  ```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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