NLX Audit | Coredao | Halborn Audit Reports

Summary

100% of all REPORTED Findings have been addressed

About this report

Assessment Type

Advisory Assessment

Date of Engagement

March 25th, 2024 - April 14th, 2024

Source Code

nlx-synthetics

Assessed Commit ID

a9fbd4b

Severity Breakdown

0Risk Accepted
1Acknowledged
2Solved
3All Findings

Critical1
- 1Solved
High1
- 1Solved
Medium0
Low0
Informational1
- 1Ack.

Introduction#

The CoreDAO team engaged Halborn to conduct a security assessment on their smart contracts beginning on 03/25/2024 and ending on 04/15/2024. The security assessment was scoped to the smart contracts provided in the GitHub repository. Commit hashes and further details can be found in the Scope section of this report.

Assessment Summary#

Halborn was provided 2.5 weeks for the engagement and assigned 1 full-time security engineer to review the security of the smart contracts in scope. The engineer is a blockchain and smart contract security experts with advanced penetration testing and smart contract hacking skills, and deep knowledge of multiple blockchain protocols.

The purpose of the assessment is to:

Identify potential security issues within the smart contracts.
Ensure that smart contract functionality operates as intended.

In summary, Halborn identified some security that were successfully addressed by the CoreDAO team.

Test Approach and Methodology#

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

Research into architecture and purpose.
Smart contract manual code review and walkthrough.
Graphing out functionality and contract logic/connectivity/functions (solgraph).
Manual assessment of use and safety for the critical Solidity variables and functions in scope to identify any arithmetic related vulnerability classes.
Manual testing by custom scripts.
Static Analysis of security for scoped contracts, and imported functions (slither).
Testnet deployment (Foundry).

Out-of-scope#

External libraries and financial-related attacks.
External GMX code vulnerabilities.
New features/implementations after/with the remediation commit IDs.
Changes that occur outside the scope of PRs.

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.

4.1 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:

EXPLOITABILITY METRIC ( $m_e$ )	METRIC VALUE	NUMERICAL VALUE
Attack Origin (AO)	Arbitrary (AO:A)	1
Attack Origin (AO)	Specific (AO:S)	0.2
Attack Cost (AC)	Low (AC:L)	1
	Medium (AC:M)	0.67
	High (AC:H)	0.33
Attack Complexity (AX)	Low (AX:L)	1
	Medium (AX:M)	0.67
	High (AX:H)	0.33

Exploitability

E

is calculated using the following formula:

$E = \prod m_e$

4.2 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 ( $m_I$ )	METRIC VALUE	NUMERICAL VALUE
Confidentiality (C)	None (C:N)	0
	Low (C:L)	0.25
	Medium (C:M)	0.5
	High (C:H)	0.75
	Critical (C:C)	1
Integrity (I)	None (I:N)	0
	Low (I:L)	0.25
	Medium (I:M)	0.5
	High (I:H)	0.75
	Critical (I:C)	1
Availability (A)	None (A:N)	0
	Low (A:L)	0.25
	Medium (A:M)	0.5
	High (A:H)	0.75
	Critical (A:C)	1
Deposit (D)	None (D:N)	0
	Low (D:L)	0.25
	Medium (D:M)	0.5
	High (D:H)	0.75
	Critical (D:C)	1
Yield (Y)	None (Y:N)	0
	Low (Y:L)	0.25
	Medium (Y:M)	0.5
	High (Y:H)	0.75
	Critical (Y:C)	1

Impact

I

is calculated using the following formula:

$I = max(m_I) + \frac{\sum{m_I} - max(m_I)}{4}$

4.3 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 ( $C$ )	COEFFICIENT VALUE	NUMERICAL VALUE
Reversibility ( $r$ )	None (R:N)	1
	Partial (R:P)	0.5
	Full (R:F)	0.25
Scope ( $s$ )	Changed (S:C)	1.25
Scope ( $s$ )	Unchanged (S:U)	1

Severity Coefficient

C

is obtained by the following product:

$C = rs$

The Vulnerability Severity Score

S

is obtained by:

$S = min(10, EIC * 10)$

The score is rounded up to 1 decimal places.

Critical	High	Medium	Low	Informational
9 - 10	7 - 8.9	4.5 - 6.9	2 - 4.4	0 - 1.9

Scope#

(a) Repository:nlx-synthetics

(b) Assessed Commit ID:a9fbd4b3a70b829c87dd5d0a1ef1e344281d1889

2 files

oracle

1 file

Oracle.sol

solidity

utils

1 file

MulticallWithValue.sol

solidity

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

Assessment Summary & Findings Overview#

#	Title	Severity	Score	Status
HAL-01	Non-refunded excess fee in _setPricesFromPriceFeed Function	Critical	10.0	Solved04/17/2024
HAL-02	Multiple price fetches leading to arbitrage in oracle implementation	High	7.0	Solved04/17/2024
HAL-03	Inconsistency in fee calculation update across contract implementations	Informational	0.0	Acknowledged

Findings & Tech Details#

HAL-01Solved

Non-refunded excess fee in _setPricesFromPriceFeed Function

Critical

10.0AO:A/AC:L/AX:L/C:N/I:N/A:M/D:N/Y:C/R:N/S:CAO:A/AC:L/AX:L/C:N/I:N/A:M/D:N/Y:C/R:N/S:C

Description

Proof of Concept

Recommendation

HAL-02Solved

Multiple price fetches leading to arbitrage in oracle implementation

High

7.0AO:A/AC:L/AX:L/C:M/I:C/A:N/D:N/Y:N/R:P/S:CAO:A/AC:L/AX:L/C:M/I:C/A:N/D:N/Y:N/R:P/S:C

Description

Proof of Concept

Recommendation

HAL-03Acknowledged

Inconsistency in fee calculation update across contract implementations

Informational

0.0AO:A/AC:L/AX:L/C:N/I:N/A:N/D:N/Y:N/R:P/S:CAO:A/AC:L/AX:L/C:N/I:N/A:N/D:N/Y:N/R:P/S:C

Description

Recommendation

References

8. Automated Testing#

Disclaimer#

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.