Snowman Merkle Airdrop

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

Snowman NFTs can be minted for free by anyone due to missing access control on `Snowman.mintSnowman()`, completely bypassing the stake-Snow-for-NFT mechanism

Root + Impact

Description

  • The intended behavior of the protocol is that users must acquire Snow tokens (either by earning them once a week for free or by purchasing them with WETH/ETH) and stake them through the SnowmanAirdrop.claimSnowman() flow to receive Snowman NFTs equal to their Snow balance. The Snowman NFT supply is therefore supposed to be backed 1:1 by staked Snow.

  • However, Snowman.mintSnowman() is a permissionless external function. Anyone can call it with an arbitrary receiver and amount to mint any number of NFTs for free, without owning or staking a single Snow token. The contract inherits Ownable (and even defines a custom SM__NotAllowed error that is never used), which strongly indicates an access-control check was intended but omitted.

contract Snowman is ERC721, Ownable {
// ...
error SM__NotAllowed(); // @> declared but never used — access control was intended
// ...
​
// >>> EXTERNAL FUNCTIONS
function mintSnowman(address receiver, uint256 amount) external { // @> no onlyOwner / no caller restriction
for (uint256 i = 0; i < amount; i++) {
_safeMint(receiver, s_TokenCounter); // @> anyone can mint unlimited NFTs for any receiver
​
emit SnowmanMinted(receiver, s_TokenCounter);
​
s_TokenCounter++;
}
}

Risk

Likelihood:

The Snowman NFT address and its ABI are public on-chain, and the attack is a single public-function call with no prerequisites (no token ownership, no Merkle proof, no signature, no payment), so any bot or user scanning deployed contracts will trigger it within minutes of deployment.

SnowmanAirdrop.claimSnowman() itself is a legitimate caller of mintSnowman(), but nothing restricts the caller set to the airdrop contract — every other address in the world is also an authorized caller by default.

Impact:

The core value proposition of the protocol — NFTs are only obtainable by staking Snow — is completely destroyed. An attacker mints unlimited free NFTs, driving NFT scarcity and any secondary-market value to zero, while the Merkle-tree distribution, EIP-712 signature flow and staking mechanics become pointless.

Legitimate stakers lock their Snow tokens inside SnowmanAirdrop (with no way to withdraw them) to receive NFTs that anyone else can obtain for free, resulting in a direct loss of value for honest users.

Proof of Concept

Place in test/ and run with forge test --mt test_Audit_AnyoneCanMintFreeSnowmans -vvv:

// SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
pragma solidity ^0.8.24;
​
import {Test, console2} from "forge-std/Test.sol";
import {Snowman} from "../src/Snowman.sol";
import {Snow} from "../src/Snow.sol";
​
contract AuditPoC_H1 is Test {
Snowman public snowman;
address public attacker = makeAddr("attacker");
​
function setUp() public {
snowman = new Snowman("ipfs://snowman-svg");
}
​
function test_Audit_AnyoneCanMintFreeSnowmans() public {
uint256 balanceBefore = snowman.balanceOf(attacker);
​
// Attacker never acquired any Snow token, never staked, has no Merkle proof
// and no signature — yet mints 100 Snowman NFTs for free:
vm.prank(attacker);
snowman.mintSnowman(attacker, 100);
​
uint256 balanceAfter = snowman.balanceOf(attacker);
assertEq(balanceAfter - balanceBefore, 100); // PASS: 100 free NFTs minted
assertEq(snowman.getTokenCounter(), 100);
}
}

Recommended Mitigation

Restrict mintSnowman() to the airdrop contract (or to the owner, if manual minting is desired):

// >>> EXTERNAL FUNCTIONS
- function mintSnowman(address receiver, uint256 amount) external {
+ function mintSnowman(address receiver, uint256 amount) external onlyAirdrop {
+ // or: onlyOwner / onlyRole(MINTER_ROLE) with the SnowmanAirdrop address granted the role
for (uint256 i = 0; i < amount; i++) {
_safeMint(receiver, s_TokenCounter);
​
emit SnowmanMinted(receiver, s_TokenCounter);
​
s_TokenCounter++;
}
}

Where onlyAirdrop is a modifier comparing msg.sender to an immutable i_airdrop address set in the constructor. Also remove the unused SM__NotAllowed error or use it in the new modifier.

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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