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Staking Farm - Aurora

Prepared by:

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HALBORN

Last Updated 04/26/2024

Date of Engagement by: February 9th, 2022 - March 25th, 2022

Summary

0% of all REPORTED Findings have been addressed

All findings

11

Critical

0

High

0

Medium

0

Low

0

Informational

11

Table of Contents

1. INTRODUCTION

Aurora engaged Halborn to conduct a security assessment on the staking farm NEAR smart contracts utilized by them, beginning on February 9th, 2022 and ending March 25th, 2022. Aurora provides Ethereum compatibility, NEAR Protocol scalability, and industry-first user experience through affordable transactions.

Though this security audit's outcome is satisfactory, only the most essential aspects were tested and verified to achieve objectives and deliverables set in the scope due to time and resource constraints. It is essential to note the use of the best practices for secure development.

2. AUDIT SUMMARY

The team at Halborn was provided 6 weeks for the engagement and assigned two full-time security engineers to audit the security of the assets in scope. The engineers are blockchain and smart contract security experts with advanced penetration testing, smart-contract hacking, and deep knowledge of multiple blockchain protocols.

The purpose of this audit is to achieve the following:

    • Identify potential security issues within the NEAR smart contracts.

In summary, Halborn identified few security risks that were mostly addressed by the Aurora team.

3. TEST APPROACH & METHODOLOGY

Halborn performed a combination of manual view of the code and automated security testing to balance efficiency, timeliness, practicality, and accuracy in regard to the scope of the smart contract audit. While manual testing is recommended to uncover flaws in logic, process, and implementation; automated testing techniques help enhance coverage of smart contracts and can quickly identify items that do not follow security best practices. The following phases and associated tools were used throughout the term of the audit:

    • Research into architecture, purpose, and use of the platform.

    • Manual code read and walkthrough.

    • Manual Assessment of use and safety for the critical Rust variables and functions in scope to identify any arithmetic related vulnerability classes.

    • Fuzz testing. (cargo fuzz, honggfuzz)

    • Checking the unsafe code usage. (cargo-geiger)

    • Scanning of Rust files for vulnerabilities.(cargo audit)

    • Deployment to devnet through near-cli

4. SCOPE

5. RISK METHODOLOGY

Every vulnerability and issue observed by Halborn is ranked based on two sets of Metrics and a Severity Coefficient. This system is inspired by the industry standard Common Vulnerability Scoring System.
The two Metric sets are: Exploitability and Impact. Exploitability captures the ease and technical means by which vulnerabilities can be exploited and Impact describes the consequences of a successful exploit.
The Severity Coefficients is designed to further refine the accuracy of the ranking with two factors: Reversibility and Scope. These capture the impact of the vulnerability on the environment as well as the number of users and smart contracts affected.
The final score is a value between 0-10 rounded up to 1 decimal place and 10 corresponding to the highest security risk. This provides an objective and accurate rating of the severity of security vulnerabilities in smart contracts.
The system is designed to assist in identifying and prioritizing vulnerabilities based on their level of risk to address the most critical issues in a timely manner.

5.1 EXPLOITABILITY

Attack Origin (AO):
Captures whether the attack requires compromising a specific account.
Attack Cost (AC):
Captures the cost of exploiting the vulnerability incurred by the attacker relative to sending a single transaction on the relevant blockchain. Includes but is not limited to financial and computational cost.
Attack Complexity (AX):
Describes the conditions beyond the attacker’s control that must exist in order to exploit the vulnerability. Includes but is not limited to macro situation, available third-party liquidity and regulatory challenges.
Metrics:
EXPLOITABILIY METRIC (mem_e)METRIC VALUENUMERICAL VALUE
Attack Origin (AO)Arbitrary (AO:A)
Specific (AO:S)		1
0.2
Attack Cost (AC)Low (AC:L)
Medium (AC:M)
High (AC:H)		1
0.67
0.33
Attack Complexity (AX)Low (AX:L)
Medium (AX:M)
High (AX:H)		1
0.67
0.33
Exploitability EE is calculated using the following formula:

E=∏meE = \prod m_e

5.2 IMPACT

Confidentiality (C):
Measures the impact to the confidentiality of the information resources managed by the contract due to a successfully exploited vulnerability. Confidentiality refers to limiting access to authorized users only.
Integrity (I):
Measures the impact to integrity of a successfully exploited vulnerability. Integrity refers to the trustworthiness and veracity of data stored and/or processed on-chain. Integrity impact directly affecting Deposit or Yield records is excluded.
Availability (A):
Measures the impact to the availability of the impacted component resulting from a successfully exploited vulnerability. This metric refers to smart contract features and functionality, not state. Availability impact directly affecting Deposit or Yield is excluded.
Deposit (D):
Measures the impact to the deposits made to the contract by either users or owners.
Yield (Y):
Measures the impact to the yield generated by the contract for either users or owners.
Metrics:
IMPACT METRIC (mIm_I)METRIC VALUENUMERICAL VALUE
Confidentiality (C)None (I:N)
Low (I:L)
Medium (I:M)
High (I:H)
Critical (I:C)		0
0.25
0.5
0.75
1
Integrity (I)None (I:N)
Low (I:L)
Medium (I:M)
High (I:H)
Critical (I:C)		0
0.25
0.5
0.75
1
Availability (A)None (A:N)
Low (A:L)
Medium (A:M)
High (A:H)
Critical (A:C)		0
0.25
0.5
0.75
1
Deposit (D)None (D:N)
Low (D:L)
Medium (D:M)
High (D:H)
Critical (D:C)		0
0.25
0.5
0.75
1
Yield (Y)None (Y:N)
Low (Y:L)
Medium (Y:M)
High (Y:H)
Critical (Y:C)		0
0.25
0.5
0.75
1
Impact II is calculated using the following formula:

I=max(mI)+∑mI−max(mI)4I = max(m_I) + \frac{\sum{m_I} - max(m_I)}{4}

5.3 SEVERITY COEFFICIENT

Reversibility (R):
Describes the share of the exploited vulnerability effects that can be reversed. For upgradeable contracts, assume the contract private key is available.
Scope (S):
Captures whether a vulnerability in one vulnerable contract impacts resources in other contracts.
Metrics:
SEVERITY COEFFICIENT (CC)COEFFICIENT VALUENUMERICAL VALUE
Reversibility (rr)None (R:N)
Partial (R:P)
Full (R:F)		1
0.5
0.25
Scope (ss)Changed (S:C)
Unchanged (S:U)		1.25
1
Severity Coefficient CC is obtained by the following product:

C=rsC = rs

The Vulnerability Severity Score SS is obtained by:

S=min(10,EIC∗10)S = min(10, EIC * 10)

The score is rounded up to 1 decimal places.
SeverityScore Value Range
Critical9 - 10
High7 - 8.9
Medium4.5 - 6.9
Low2 - 4.4
Informational0 - 1.9

6. SCOPE

Out-of-Scope: New features/implementations after the remediation commit IDs.

7. Assessment Summary & Findings Overview

Critical

0

High

0

Medium

0

Low

0

Informational

11

Security analysisRisk levelRemediation Date
HAL01 - PUBLICLY CALLABLE FUNCTIONS LEADING TO OUT-OF-CONTRACT FUNDS BURNInformational-
HAL02 - IMPROPER ROLE-BASED ACCESS CONTROL POLICYInformational-
HAL03 - MULTIPLE STAKING ACTIONS CAN BE PERFORMED WHILE CONTRACT IS PAUSEDInformational-
HAL04 - LACK OF VALIDATION OF BURN FRACTIONInformational-
HAL05 - VALUE CONVERSION TO SMALLER SIZES MAY RESULT IN OVERFLOWSInformational-
HAL06 - DELEGATOR AND PREDECESSOR CAN BE THE SAMEInformational-
HAL07 - USE OF VULNERABLE CRATESInformational-
HAL08 - DEPOSIT ATTACHED IS NOT ASSERTEDInformational-
HAL09 - REDUNDANT ASSERTIONInformational-
HAL10 - ASSERTION SHOULD BE REPLACED BY A MACROInformational-
HAL11 - DEFAULT IMPLEMENTATION SHOULD BE REPLACED BY A MACROInformational-

8. Findings & Tech Details

8.1 HAL01 - PUBLICLY CALLABLE FUNCTIONS LEADING TO OUT-OF-CONTRACT FUNDS BURN

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8.2 HAL02 - IMPROPER ROLE-BASED ACCESS CONTROL POLICY

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8.3 HAL03 - MULTIPLE STAKING ACTIONS CAN BE PERFORMED WHILE CONTRACT IS PAUSED

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8.4 HAL04 - LACK OF VALIDATION OF BURN FRACTION

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8.5 HAL05 - VALUE CONVERSION TO SMALLER SIZES MAY RESULT IN OVERFLOWS

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8.6 HAL06 - DELEGATOR AND PREDECESSOR CAN BE THE SAME

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8.7 HAL07 - USE OF VULNERABLE CRATES

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8.8 HAL08 - DEPOSIT ATTACHED IS NOT ASSERTED

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8.9 HAL09 - REDUNDANT ASSERTION

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8.10 HAL10 - ASSERTION SHOULD BE REPLACED BY A MACRO

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8.11 HAL11 - DEFAULT IMPLEMENTATION SHOULD BE REPLACED BY A MACRO

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9. Automated Testing

AUTOMATED ANALYSIS

Description

Halborn used automated security scanners to assist with detection of well-known security issues and vulnerabilities. Among the tools used was cargo audit, a security scanner for vulnerabilities reported to the RustSec Advisory Database. All vulnerabilities published in https://crates.io are stored in a repository named The RustSec Advisory Database. cargo audit is a human-readable version of the advisory database which performs a scanning on Cargo.lock. Security Detections are only in scope. All vulnerabilities shown here were already disclosed in the above report. However, to better assist the developers maintaining this code, the auditors are including the output with the dependencies tree, and this is included in the cargo audit output to better know the dependencies affected by unmaintained and vulnerable crates.

Results

\begin{center} \begin{tabular}{|l|p{2cm}|p{9cm}|} \hline \textbf{ID} & \textbf{package} & \textbf{Short Description} \ \hline \href{https://rustsec.org/advisories/RUSTSEC-2020-0159}{RUSTSEC-2020-0159} & chrono & Potential segfault in localtime\textunderscore r invocations \ \hline \href{https://rustsec.org/advisories/RUSTSEC-2021-0067}{RUSTSEC-2021-0067} & cranelift-codegen & Memory access due to code generation flaw in Cranelift module\ \hline \href{https://rustsec.org/advisories/RUSTSEC-2021-0013}{RUSTSEC-2021-0013} & raw-cpuid & Soundness issues in raw-cpuid \ \hline \href{https://rustsec.org/advisories/RUSTSEC-2021-0089}{RUSTSEC-2021-0089} & raw-cpuid & Optional Deserialize implementations lacking validation \ \hline \href{https://rustsec.org/advisories/RUSTSEC-2022-0013}{RUSTSEC-2022-0013} & regex & Regexes with large repetitions on empty sub-expressions take a very long time to parse \ \hline \href{https://rustsec.org/advisories/RUSTSEC-2020-0071}{RUSTSEC-2020-0071} & time & Potential segfault in the time crate \ \hline \href{https://rustsec.org/advisories/RUSTSEC-2021-0110}{RUSTSEC-2021-0110} & wasmtime & Multiple Vulnerabilities in Wasmtime \ \hline \end{tabular} \end{center}

Halborn strongly recommends conducting a follow-up assessment of the project either within six months or immediately following any material changes to the codebase, whichever comes first. This approach is crucial for maintaining the project’s integrity and addressing potential vulnerabilities introduced by code modifications.

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