Node and EVM - Taraxa

Prepared by:

HALBORN

Last Updated 04/26/2024

Date of Engagement: June 1st, 2022 - August 31st, 2022

Summary

0% of all REPORTED Findings have been addressed

All findings

Critical

High

Medium

Low

Informational

1. INTRODUCTION

Taraxa engaged Halborn to conduct a security assessment on taraxa-node and Taraxa-EVM codebase from June 1st, 2022 to August 31st.

2. AUDIT SUMMARY

The team at Halborn was provided a timeline 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 in-depth knowledge of multiple blockchain protocols.

The purpose of this audit is to achieve the following:

Identify potential security issues within taraxa-node and Taraxa-EVM.

In summary, Halborn identified multiple security risks that were mostly addressed by the Taraxa team.

3. TEST APPROACH & METHODOLOGY

4. SCOPE

The assessment was scoped for the following projects details:

Taraxa-node (commit ID: d091acbb20853c629a8b04ea11dcf32241e1c897)
Taraxa-EVM (commit ID: a23dbf14f9cf8513f1bde13757e2d9b27cf2db8c)

The main particular components and libraries under review were: - RPC - P2P - Cryptography Signatures - Keys Management - Accounts and transactions - Consensus - Storage

5. RISK METHODOLOGY

Vulnerabilities or issues observed by Halborn are ranked based on the risk assessment methodology by measuring the LIKELIHOOD of a security incident and the IMPACT should an incident occur. This framework works for communicating the characteristics and impacts of technology vulnerabilities. The quantitative model ensures repeatable and accurate measurement while enabling users to see the underlying vulnerability characteristics that were used to generate the Risk scores. For every vulnerability, a risk level will be calculated on a scale of 5 to 1 with 5 being the highest likelihood or impact.

RISK SCALE - LIKELIHOOD

5 - Almost certain an incident will occur.
4 - High probability of an incident occurring.
3 - Potential of a security incident in the long term.
2 - Low probability of an incident occurring.
1 - Very unlikely issue will cause an incident.

RISK SCALE - IMPACT

5 - May cause devastating and unrecoverable impact or loss.
4 - May cause a significant level of impact or loss.
3 - May cause a partial impact or loss to many.
2 - May cause temporary impact or loss.
1 - May cause minimal or un-noticeable impact.

The risk level is then calculated using a sum of these two values, creating a value of 10 to 1 with 10 being the highest level of security risk.

Critical

High

Medium

Low

Informational

10 - CRITICAL
9 - 8 - HIGH
7 - 6 - MEDIUM
5 - 4 - LOW
3 - 1 - VERY LOW AND INFORMATIONAL

Our penetration tests use the industry standard Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) to calculate the severity of our findings.

6. SCOPE

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

7. Assessment Summary & Findings Overview

Critical

High

Medium

Low

Informational

Security analysis	Risk level	Remediation Date
VOTES - DENIAL OF SERVICE	Informational	-
RPC - NO AUTHENTICATION REQUIRED	Informational	-
BLOCK QUEUE WARNING WILL BLOCK INSTEAD OF WARNING	Informational	-
UNFILTERED PARAMETER ALLOWED TO EXECUTE COMMANDS ON THE HOST	Informational	-
LACK OF RETURN ERROR	Informational	-
LACK OF SIZE CHECK - OUT-OF-BOUNDS	Informational	-
INCORRECT `NIL` VALUE RETURNED ON AN ERROR	Informational	-
MULTIPLE OUTDATED MODULES	Informational	-
ERROR VALUE EVALUATED BUT NOT APPLIED	Informational	-
NO `ERR` VARIABLE EVALUATION PRIOR TO AN OPERATION	Informational	-
IMPLICIT MEMORY ALIASING IN LOOP	Informational	-
LACK OF DEFAULT CLAUSE ON SWITCH STATEMENT	Informational	-
INSECURE RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR	Informational	-
COMPARE INSTEAD OF EQUAL	Informational	-
MULTIPLE TO-DO COMMENTS FOUND ON THE CODE	Informational	-

(0.0)

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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Node and EVM

Taraxa

Table of Contents

1. INTRODUCTION

2. AUDIT SUMMARY

3. TEST APPROACH & METHODOLOGY

4. SCOPE

5. RISK METHODOLOGY

6. SCOPE

7. Assessment Summary & Findings Overview

8. Findings & Tech Details

8.1 VOTES - DENIAL OF SERVICE

Description

Score

8.2 RPC - NO AUTHENTICATION REQUIRED

Description

Score

8.3 BLOCK QUEUE WARNING WILL BLOCK INSTEAD OF WARNING

Description

Score

8.4 UNFILTERED PARAMETER ALLOWED TO EXECUTE COMMANDS ON THE HOST

Description

Score

8.5 LACK OF RETURN ERROR

Description

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8.6 LACK OF SIZE CHECK - OUT-OF-BOUNDS

Description

Score

8.7 INCORRECT `NIL` VALUE RETURNED ON AN ERROR

Description

Score

8.8 MULTIPLE OUTDATED MODULES

Description

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8.9 ERROR VALUE EVALUATED BUT NOT APPLIED

Description

Score

8.10 NO `ERR` VARIABLE EVALUATION PRIOR TO AN OPERATION

Description

Score

8.11 IMPLICIT MEMORY ALIASING IN LOOP

Description

Score

8.12 LACK OF DEFAULT CLAUSE ON SWITCH STATEMENT

Description

Score

8.13 INSECURE RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR

Description

Score

8.14 COMPARE INSTEAD OF EQUAL

Description

Score

8.15 MULTIPLE TO-DO COMMENTS FOUND ON THE CODE

Description

Score

Table of Contents