Revealing the professional secrets of Ethereum smart contract audit!

 Let’s get into the exploration of smart contracts!

A smart contract is a computer protocol that executes a task based on the specified conditions. In general smart contracts are utilized for purposes such as payment terms, confidentiality, trade deals, loans, regulations, and compliances. Smart contracts are being leveraged in various sectors such as supply chain management, electoral voting, ICO’s, and exchange processes. Above all the smart contracts are built on a blockchain framework and it inherits all the features of the DLT such as transparency, P2P transactions, tamper-proof, immutability. 

Let’s take a tour on why to audit the smart contracts, and their professional processes!

The reasons to audit smart contracts!

Smart contracts are recommended to be audited by professionals to check the following qualities:

• Performance-optimization,

• Devoid of security issues & loopholes,

• Design issues, 

• Code violations,

• Vulnerabilities,

• Impact & Behavior in negative-case scenarios. 

Smart Contract audit-A gist!

Smart contract audit is the process of spying on the code that is used to underwrite the terms and conditions of the deal. The audit process helps development and the design teams to identify the potential bugs and rectify them before deployment. 

Usually, the auditing of smart contracts is done by third-parties like professional blockchain developers or smart contract audit company to ensure the code is reviewed completely. The process of auditing the smart contracts is mandated as they are deployed on the blockchain network. 

The professionals auditing the smart contracts focus on these specific areas:

• Common bugs such as stack, compilation, reentrance errors.

• Hosting platform common errors and security flaws.

• Break testing(Stimulating the negative case scenarios).

Process of auditing a smart contract- A brief!

In generic, smart contract auditing is done by two approaches: Manual & automated code analysis. Usually, the automated test suite runs through the code base and again the manual verification is done in Ethereum smart contract audit services. The smart contracts automated test suite is in the early stage, and hence to ensure 100% line coverage, the auditing team processes both approaches. 

Manual code analysis VS Automated test suite

Manual Code Analysis

Manual code analysis of smart contracts suits best for the medium-scale and large testing teams. The testing team examines each code piece and scrutinizes it for compilation. This is the best-suited technique for long-term smart contract applications.

Automated test suite

Automated smart contract auditing suits best the teams at which there are limited resources for testing the smart contracts. The automated test suite enables penetration testing that helps identify the bugs at a quick pace with less workforce. 

Final standpoint!

In general, Ethereum smart contracts are to be spied on the following issues:

• Reentrancy attack

• Over and underflows

• Reordering attack

• Replay attack

• Short address attack

Be it an automated or manual code analysis, it’s the best practice to get audited smart contracts from the professional team. To know more about the blockchain space, do connect with us!