Ripple - Smart Contract Audit - Permissioned Domains - Ripple

Prepared by:

HALBORN

Last Updated 06/27/2025

Date of Engagement: December 23rd, 2024 - January 10th, 2025

Summary

100% of all REPORTED Findings have been addressed

All findings

Critical

High

Medium

Low

Informational

1. Introduction
2. Assessment summary
3. Test approach and methodology
4. Risk methodology
5. Scope
6. Assessment summary & findings overview
7. Findings & Tech Details

7.1 Lack of error handling
7.2 Expired and non accepted credentials could be part of the domain

1. Introduction

Ripple engaged Halborn to conduct a security assessment on XRP Ledger (XRPL) feature amendments, beginning on December 23rd, 2024 and ending on January 10th, 2025. The security assessment was scoped to the features provided to the Halborn team.

Commit hashes and further details can be found in the Scope section of this report.

The Permissioned Domains feature introduced a new transaction type and structures to allow the creation of domains whitelisting specific credential bearers to send and receive transactions within that permissioned domain.

2. Assessment Summary

The team at Halborn assigned a full-time security engineer to assess the security of the node. The security engineer is a blockchain and smart-contract security expert with advanced penetration testing, smart-contract hacking, and deep knowledge of multiple blockchain protocols.

The purpose of this assessment is to:

Ensure that the new features operate as intended.
Identify potential security issues with the new features.

In summary, Halborn identified some improvements to reduce the likelihood and impact of risks, which were acknowledged by the Ripple team:

Improve the error handling.
Mind of unaccepted and expired credentials when implementing additional Permissioned Domain features.

3. Test Approach and Methodology

Halborn performed a combination of manual review of the code and automated security testing to balance efficiency, timeliness, practicality, and accuracy in regard to the scope of the node security assessment. While manual testing is recommended to uncover flaws in logic, process, and implementation; automated testing techniques help enhance coverage 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 assessment:

Research into the architecture, purpose, and use of the platform.
Manual code review and walkthrough to identify any logic issue.
Graphing out functionality and contract logic/connectivity/functions.

4. 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) 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

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) Low (C:L) Medium (C:M) High (C:H) Critical (C: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

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) Partial (R:P) Full (R:F)	1 0.5 0.25
Scope ( $s$ )	Changed (S:C) Unchanged (S:U)	1.25 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.

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

5. SCOPE

REPOSITORY

(a) Repository: rippled

(b) Assessed Commit ID: 971aaa6

src/xrpld/app/tx/detail/PermissionedDomainSet.cpp
src/xrpld/app/tx/detail/PermissionedDomainDelete.cpp
src/xrpld/app/misc/CredentialHelpers.cp

Out-of-Scope: Third party dependencies.

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

6. Assessment Summary & Findings Overview

Critical

High

Medium

Low

Informational

Security analysis	Risk level	Remediation Date
Lack of error handling	Informational	Acknowledged - 02/13/2025
Expired and non accepted credentials could be part of the domain	Informational	Acknowledged - 02/13/2025

7. Findings & Tech Details

7.1 Lack of error handling

Informational

Description

BVSS

AO:A/AC:L/AX:L/R:N/S:U/C:N/A:N/I:N/D:N/Y:N (0.0)

Recommendation

Remediation Comment

7.2 Expired and non accepted credentials could be part of the domain

Informational

Description

BVSS

AO:A/AC:L/AX:L/R:N/S:U/C:N/A:N/I:N/D:N/Y:N (0.0)

Recommendation

Remediation Comment

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.

1. Introduction
2. Assessment summary
3. Test approach and methodology
4. Risk methodology
5. Scope
6. Assessment summary & findings overview
7. Findings & Tech Details