Prepared by:
HALBORN
Last Updated 03/10/2025
Date of Engagement: February 6th, 2025 - February 10th, 2025
100% of all REPORTED Findings have been addressed
All findings
2
Critical
0
High
0
Medium
0
Low
1
Informational
1
The Vault team engaged Halborn
to conduct a security assessment on their Directed Stake and Directed Stake Token
Solana programs beginning on February 6th, 2025, and ending on February, 10th, 2025. The security assessment was scoped to the Solana programs provided in SolanaVault/directed-stake GitHub repository. Commit hashes and further details can be found in the Scope section of this report.
The directed-stake
program provides core functionality for managing a "Director" account that encapsulates staking parameters and target configurations on Solana. By initializing a Director PDA, users or programs can set a specific stake target (like a validator's vote account) and later update or close that Director. The program uses standard Solana/Anchor pattern such as PDA derivations and cross-program invocations (CPIs).
The directed-stake-token
program integrates token minting, burning and fee distribution into the directed staking workflow. It allows the creation of a specialized "DST" (directed stake token) mint, which represents a liquidity token for staked assets. Users can deposit vSOL (a liquid staking token) in exchange for newly minted DST tokens, or burn DST tokens to withdraw staked assets minus fees.
Halborn
was provided 4 days for the engagement and assigned one full-time security engineer to review the security of the Solana Program in scope. The engineer is a blockchain and smart contract security expert with advanced smart contract hacking skills, and deep knowledge of multiple blockchain protocols.
The purpose of the assessment is to:
Identify potential security issues within the Co-Staking
Solana Program.
Ensure that the program's functionality operates as intended.
In summary, Halborn identified some improvements to reduce the likelihood and impact of risks, which were partially addressed by The Vault team
:
Add #[repr(packed)] or #[repr(C)] directly above any #[account(zero_copy)] struct definitions to ensure a stable field layout across all builds.
Use checked SPL token methods for enhanced security and data integrity.
Halborn
performed a combination of a manual review of the source code and automated security testing to balance efficiency, timeliness, practicality, and accuracy in regard to the scope of the program assessment. While manual testing is recommended to uncover flaws in business logic, processes, and implementation; automated testing techniques help enhance coverage of programs 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 program source code review to identify business logic issues.
Mapping out possible attack vectors.
Thorough assessment of safety and usage of critical Rust variables and functions in scope that could lead to arithmetic vulnerabilities.
Scanning dependencies for known vulnerabilities (cargo audit
).
Local runtime testing (solana-test-framework
).
EXPLOITABILITY METRIC () | 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 |
IMPACT METRIC () | METRIC VALUE | NUMERICAL 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 |
SEVERITY COEFFICIENT () | COEFFICIENT VALUE | NUMERICAL VALUE |
---|---|---|
Reversibility () | None (R:N) Partial (R:P) Full (R:F) | 1 0.5 0.25 |
Scope () | Changed (S:C) Unchanged (S:U) | 1.25 1 |
Severity | Score Value Range |
---|---|
Critical | 9 - 10 |
High | 7 - 8.9 |
Medium | 4.5 - 6.9 |
Low | 2 - 4.4 |
Informational | 0 - 1.9 |
Critical
0
High
0
Medium
0
Low
1
Informational
1
Security analysis | Risk level | Remediation Date |
---|---|---|
Zero-Copy struct representation | Low | Solved - 02/21/2025 |
Use of non-checked SPL Token instructions | Informational | Acknowledged - 02/21/2025 |
//
In the directed-stake
program, the Director
struct is marked with #[account(zero_copy)]
, but does not appear to enforce a stable memory layout, via #[repr(C)]
or #[repr(packed)]
. The same applies to the DSTInfo
struct in the directed-stake-token
program (state.rs
).
Without an explicit representation attribute, Rust may introduce unexpected alignment/padding, potentially leading to subtle data corruption or misalignment if the struct is extended or compiled under different settings.
Although current versions of the Rust compiler and Anchor typically behave predictably, it is generally recommended to pin down the struct's memory layout when using zero-copy. Failing to do so can become more critical when additional fields are introduced to the struct.
Code excerpts
directed-stake/programs/directed-stake/src/lib.rs
#[account(zero_copy)]
#[derive(Debug, Default)]
pub struct Director {
pub stake_target: Pubkey,
pub last_updated_at: u64,
}
directed-stake/programs/directed-stake-token/src/state.rs
#[account(zero_copy)]
#[derive(Debug, Default)]
pub struct DSTInfo {
/// Mint account of the DST.
pub token_mint: Pubkey,
pub operator: Pubkey,
pub partner: Pubkey,
/// Where the vSOL tokens are stored.
/// This also holds all fees.
/// Note that fees are withdrawn in vSOL-- to withdraw the DST,
/// chain the withdraw instruction with a mint instruction.
pub vsol_reserves: Pubkey,
// The lifetime amount of unclaimed operator fees
pub lifetime_operator_fees: u64,
// The total amount of operator fees not withdrawn from the DST.
pub unclaimed_operator_fees: u64,
// The lifetime amount of unclaimed partner fees
pub lifetime_partner_fees: u64,
// The total amount of partner fees not withdrawn from the DST.
pub unclaimed_partner_fees: u64,
/// Bump seed
pub bump: u8,
/// Base fee in BPS.
pub base_fee: u8,
/// Operator fee in BPS.
pub operator_fee: u16,
/// Padding to align the struct
_padding: u32,
/// An account which can become the new operator.
pub pending_operator: Pubkey,
}
Steps:
Director
and DSTInfo
struct definitions.#[repr(C)]
or #[repr(packed)]
is missing.It is recommended to add #[repr(packed)]
or #[repr(C)]
directly above any #[account(zero_copy)]
struct definitions to ensure a stable field layout across all builds.
If zero-copy is not strictly required, consider removing #[account(zero_copy)]
and storing data in a normal Anchor account struct.
SOLVED: The Vault team has solved this issue as recommended. The commit hash for reference is a6f438b20507cb95c079afd2f4305852e5678763
.
//
During the review of the proposed Solana programs, it was identified that the standard, unchecked SPL token instructions are used, rather than their checked
variation, specifically:
token::transfer(...)
token::mint_to(...)
token::burn(...)
The checked
instructions, such as transfer_checked
, mint_to_checked
and burn_checked
. These instructions include additional runtime assertions - such as verifying the expected token decimals - that go beyond the basic mint-matching checks performed by the standard instructions.
The checked instructions enforce the mint's declared decimal count during each operation, thereby reducing the chance of mismatch or incorrect decimal usage.
It is recommended to replace the unchecked instructions for their checked variants, such as mint_to_checked
, transfer_checked
and burn_checked
.
ACKNOWLEDGED: The Vault team has acknowledged this finding.
Static Analysis Report
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.
Cargo Audit Results
ID | Crate | Desccription |
---|---|---|
RUSTSEC-2024-0093 | ed25519-dalek | Double Public Key Signing Function Oracle Attack on |
RUSTSEC-2024-0344 | curve25519-dalek | Timing variability in |
RUSTSEC-2024-0402 | hashbrown | Borsh serialization of HashMap is non-canonical |
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.
// Download the full report
The Vault - Directed Stake Program
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