Proxion: Uncovering Hidden Proxy Smart Contracts for Finding Collision Vulnerabilities in Ethereum

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Chen, Cheng-Kang, Chu, Wen-Yi, Tran, Muoi, Vanbever, Laurent, Hsiao, Hsu-Chun
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2024
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author Chen, Cheng-Kang
Chu, Wen-Yi
Tran, Muoi
Vanbever, Laurent
Hsiao, Hsu-Chun
author_facet Chen, Cheng-Kang
Chu, Wen-Yi
Tran, Muoi
Vanbever, Laurent
Hsiao, Hsu-Chun
contents The proxy design pattern allows Ethereum smart contracts to be simultaneously immutable and upgradeable, in which an original contract is split into a proxy contract containing the data storage and a logic contract containing the implementation logic. This architecture is known to have security issues, namely function collisions and storage collisions between the proxy and logic contracts, and has been exploited in real-world incidents to steal users' millions of dollars worth of digital assets. In response to this concern, several previous works have sought to identify proxy contracts in Ethereum and detect their collisions. However, they all fell short due to their limited coverage, often restricting analysis to only contracts with available source code or past transactions. To bridge this gap, we present Proxion, an automated cross-contract analyzer that identifies all proxy smart contracts and their collisions in Ethereum. What sets Proxion apart is its ability to analyze hidden smart contracts that lack both source code and past transactions. Equipped with various techniques to enhance efficiency and accuracy, Proxion outperforms the state-of-the-art tools, notably identifying millions more proxy contracts and thousands of unreported collisions. We apply Proxion to analyze over 36 million alive contracts from 2015 to 2023, revealing that 54.2% of them are proxy contracts, and about 1.5 million contracts exhibit at least one collision issue.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2409_13563
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Proxion: Uncovering Hidden Proxy Smart Contracts for Finding Collision Vulnerabilities in Ethereum
Chen, Cheng-Kang
Chu, Wen-Yi
Tran, Muoi
Vanbever, Laurent
Hsiao, Hsu-Chun
Cryptography and Security
Emerging Technologies
Software Engineering
The proxy design pattern allows Ethereum smart contracts to be simultaneously immutable and upgradeable, in which an original contract is split into a proxy contract containing the data storage and a logic contract containing the implementation logic. This architecture is known to have security issues, namely function collisions and storage collisions between the proxy and logic contracts, and has been exploited in real-world incidents to steal users' millions of dollars worth of digital assets. In response to this concern, several previous works have sought to identify proxy contracts in Ethereum and detect their collisions. However, they all fell short due to their limited coverage, often restricting analysis to only contracts with available source code or past transactions. To bridge this gap, we present Proxion, an automated cross-contract analyzer that identifies all proxy smart contracts and their collisions in Ethereum. What sets Proxion apart is its ability to analyze hidden smart contracts that lack both source code and past transactions. Equipped with various techniques to enhance efficiency and accuracy, Proxion outperforms the state-of-the-art tools, notably identifying millions more proxy contracts and thousands of unreported collisions. We apply Proxion to analyze over 36 million alive contracts from 2015 to 2023, revealing that 54.2% of them are proxy contracts, and about 1.5 million contracts exhibit at least one collision issue.
title Proxion: Uncovering Hidden Proxy Smart Contracts for Finding Collision Vulnerabilities in Ethereum
topic Cryptography and Security
Emerging Technologies
Software Engineering
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.13563