Snowman Merkle Airdrop

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

Snowman Merkle Airdrop - Unrestricted Public Mint on Snowman NFT

Description

Snowman.mintSnowman is an unguarded external mint. Any gas-paying account can mint arbitrary quantities of the airdrop reward NFT, occupy sequential tokenIds, and advance s_TokenCounter before a legitimate claimSnowman settlement. The airdrop contract is therefore not an exclusive minter: Merkle proofs, EIP-712 signatures, and Snow stake checks only gate SnowmanAirdrop.claimSnowman, not the NFT mint itself.

SM__NotAllowed is declared in Snowman.sol but never used. Ownable only records the deployer as owner. Deploy scripts never transfer mint rights to SnowmanAirdrop. claimSnowman simply calls the same public mintSnowman after its own checks.

Deep Dive

The intended flow is exclusive: eligible addresses prove Merkle membership and an EIP-712 signature, stake Snow, then receive Snowman NFTs minted by the airdrop contract.

The actual mint path is unrestricted:

  1. Snowman.mintSnowman(address receiver, uint256 amount) is external with no onlyOwner, onlyAirdrop, or other caller check.

  2. It loops _safeMint(receiver, tokenId) and increments s_TokenCounter for each unit.

  3. SnowmanAirdrop.claimSnowman later calls the same function. nonReentrant on claim cannot block a prior separate-tx mint. Merkle, EIP-712, and Snow-balance gates apply only inside claimSnowman.

  4. _safeMint's receiver hook does not protect against EOA receivers.

After an attacker mints n tokens, the next legitimate claim receives tokenId == n (or higher). s_TokenCounter overstates claim-settled supply, and getClaimStatus(attacker) remains false for the rogue tokens.

Exploitation

Pre-state: contest Helper/test deploy (Merkle root 0xc0b6787abae0a5066bc2d09eaec944c58119dc18be796e93de5b2bf9f80ea79a). Alice is a Merkle leaf with Snow.balanceOf == 1 from earnSnow. Attacker is any unprivileged EOA (no Snow, WETH, leaf, or signature).

  1. Deploy Snow via DeploySnow.run and Snowman via DeploySnowman.run. Construct SnowmanAirdrop(merkleRoot, snow, nft) with no transfer of mint rights.

  2. Attacker calls Snowman.mintSnowman(attacker, 3). This _safeMints tokenIds 0, 1, 2 to the attacker and sets s_TokenCounter = 3.

  3. Alice calls Snow.approve(airdrop, 1).

  4. Relayer calls SnowmanAirdrop.claimSnowman(alice, aliceMerkleProof, v, r, s) where (v, r, s) = sign(alKey, airdrop.getMessageHash(alice)). After stake/signature/proof checks, it calls i_snowman.mintSnowman(alice, 1) and _safeMints tokenId 3.

Observed: getTokenCounter() == 4, ownerOf(0..2) == attacker with getClaimStatus(attacker) == false, ownerOf(3) == alice with getClaimStatus(alice) == true. Confirmed by Foundry test InvariantExclusiveMinter.testUnauthorizedMintOccupiesIdsThenAliceClaimSettlesAtTokenId3 (PASS).

Impact

High. Any EOA can unbounded-mint the airdrop reward NFT, fully bypass Merkle/signature/Snow-stake gating, occupy and dilute every legitimate tokenId, and make s_TokenCounter overstate claim-settled supply. Reachable on the production constructors with only gas.

Recommendation

Restrict mintSnowman to a designated minter (the airdrop), or onlyOwner plus an explicit transfer/set of mint rights to SnowmanAirdrop at deploy. Use the existing SM__NotAllowed error. Consider making the airdrop the sole minter in the constructor and reverting for all other callers.

Updates

Lead Judging Commences

ai-first-flight-judge Lead Judge about 1 hour 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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