Blockchain Vulnerability Assessment is a systematic approach to identify, plan and remediate vulnerabilities from smart contracts. To ensure the security of blockchain smart contracts, it is very important to prioritize and patch vulnerabilities that may occur during various stages of development. Blockchain is a smart technology that is capable of self-executing programs and recording different data-driven transactions without intermediaries, which makes it very interesting for various industries to use this technology for process automation. Industries like finance, banking, and supply chain are making a tremendous effort in adopting this technology.
For example, Citigroup and Nasdaq announce their new embedded payment solutions by using distributed ledger technology, FedEx, one of the leading shipping companies, has also announced the testing of a new Blockchain system for the commercial supply chain.
Smart contracts are decentralized programs for autonomous transaction validation on a blockchain. Once these smart contracts are deployed on the blockchain they become immutable, so it is important for developers to understand the security aspects of smart contract development and vulnerability assessment while building a smart contract. The main concerns for developers are that it is hard to guarantee the security of smart contracts and the lack of powerful tools that support the development and testing of smart contracts. Blockchain smart contract development is a complicated process in itself, with the possibility of vulnerabilities entering during development, testing, and deployment stages. Let us try to understand what are the blockchain vulnerabilities and how to build a secure blockchain environment in this article…
Over the years, as blockchain technology is evolving so is the information about different types of vulnerabilities coming into the light. Ethereum is the most popular blockchain platform for developing smart contracts in solidity. The publicly known vulnerabilities are listed on the SWC Registry.
Public libraries by OpenZepplin are available, where audited smart contracts can be accessed for reference by the developers. These are popular and helpful resources that are at the disposal of the smart contract developers for avoiding past development errors in the smart contract codes.
Despite all this, still, smart contracts are subject to vulnerabilities. Therefore, tools that can scan and detect vulnerabilities once the code is written can help in improving smart contract development and securing it from all possible vulnerabilities. Based on the common occurrence and publicly available trends, blockchain vulnerabilities are assessed and remediated.
Identifying and resolving vulnerability issues within a Blockchain system before a hacking incident, would be an ideal strategy during smart contract development. The following are some of the security recommendations made by the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT).
Source: compiled from OWASP, NIST, CERT
The automated Vulnerability Management System from BlockChainSentry can assist you in creating a flawless vulnerability assessment that considers governance, business value, and technical requirements while ensuring trust, privacy, and security.
To ensure the security of the blockchain environment, checkout BlockChainSentry's Vulnerability Management System. BlockChainSentry is scalable and compatible with future changes of web3 technology that are going to play an important role in supporting blockchain technology.