The Importance of Smart Contract Audit in Cybersecurity

Online transactions have become an indispensable component of many people's daily lives. With the growing popularity of the digital world, people are shifting to better, more accessible transactions. The introduction of blockchain technology has created a buzz over the whole concept. People started buying and using cryptocurrencies for various purposes. However, this doesn't guarantee 100% security of the online funds. Many blockchains have been cracked and exploited by malicious actors in recent years.

To safeguard the funds invested by the parties, the developers turn to smart contract security audits. These audits are commonly used in the Decentralized Finance (Defi) ecosystem. Smart contract audit results affect the decision to invest in a blockchain.

It's essential to turn to professionals to find bugs and identify vulnerabilities in smart contract security. Any minor code error can lead to all the money being drained out of the account. The flaws are presented to the company in the form of a report. At Hexens, we apply state-of-the-art and in-depth methodologies to reveal cracks in the system and secure your transactions. Once you get the audit result, you can pass on the prevention or mitigation of potential threats.

Smart Contract Audit

This article shares, what a smart contract is. This digital mathematical agreement between two parties will automatically work when all the parameters are met. Once the contract is deployed, nothing can be changed anything.

The audit of the contract is a special methodical analysis of a code that deals with cryptocurrency or blockchain. When you conduct a contract audit, an auditor puts himself (herself) in the shoes of an attacker. This considerably increases the chances of finding vulnerabilities and risks in someone else's smart contract. Afterward, developers use the results to improve the code, achieve better optimization of it, and of course, enhance security against hackers.

Four Steps of a Smart Contract Audit

The process of the audit may vary from company to company but the main ones include exploring and collecting data, automated testing, manual testing, presenting a report, and suggestions.

1. Collecting Data — First, the parties need to determine the scope of the audit. After understanding the specification, the auditors find out how and with which simulated tools to discover possible vulnerabilities.
2. Automated Testing — After exploring the blockchain, the next stage is general automated testing. During this stage, different automated tests are used to find general issues. This saves time for auditors to focus on more important issues.
3. In-Depth Review — This review is generally conducted manually. A team of auditors works together to check every line of the code and make sure it is safe to use. This process requires a lot of time as tools can't take note of all the nuances.
4. Resolving Issues — The final stage is to report all the discovered errors to the company and suggest some steps for improvement. The developers work together to fix them and optimize the code.

Conducting smart contract audits is crucial if you want to ensure your wallets and funds are secure. Audit services — in comparison to the possible loss — will certainly justify the time and money invested.

Possible Smart Contract Weaknesses

Given the increasing number of blockchains and smart contracts, the number of cyberattacks is also on the rise. Having some insights into the common smart contract weaknesses that can be found in a contract's code is always a good idea. Here are some prominent examples:

• Timestamp Dependence
• Gas Limit and Loops
• Reentrancy
• Byte array vulnerability
• Oracle manipulation
• Integer underflows and overflows

While malicious actors get creative with every new technological milestone in the industry, so are the cybersecurity companies. Testing or audit helps to identify vulnerabilities and protect the company's assets and privacy.