Zer0 - zDAO Token

1 Executive Summary

This report is part of a series of reports presenting the results of our engagement with zer0 to review zNS, zAuction, and zBanc, zDAO Token.

The review was conducted over four weeks, from 19 April 2021 to 21 May 2021. A total of 2x4 person-weeks were spent.

1.1 Layout

It was requested to present the results for the four code-bases under review in individual reports. Links to the individual reports can be found below.

The Executive Summary and Scope sections are shared amongst the individual reports. They provide a general overview of the engagement and summarize scope changes and insights into how time was spent during the audit. The section Recommendations and Findings list the respective findings for the component under review.

The following reports were delivered:

• zNS
• zAuction
• zBanc
• zDAO-Token

1.2 Assessment Log

In the first week, the assessment team focussed its work on the zNS and zAuction systems. Details on the scope for the components was set by the client and can be found in the next section. A walkthrough session for the systems in scope was requested, to understand the fundamental design decisions of the system as some details were not found in the specification/documentation. Initial security findings were also shared with the client during this session. It was agreed to deliver a preliminary report sharing details of the findings during the end-of-week sync-up. This sync-up is also used to set the focus/scope for the next week.

In the second week, the assessment team focussed its work on zBanc a modification of the bancor protocol solidity contracts. The initial code revision under audit (zBanc 48da0ac1eebbe31a74742f1ae4281b156f03a4bc) was updated half-way into the week on Wednesday to zBanc (3d6943e82c167c1ae90fb437f9e3ed1a7a7a94c4). Preliminary findings were shared during a sync-up discussing the changing codebase under review. Thursday morning the client reported that work on the zDAO Token finished and it was requested to put it in scope for this week as the token is meant to be used soon. The assessment team agreed to have a brief look at the codebase, reporting any obvious security issues at best effort until the end-of-week sync-up meeting (1day). Due to the very limited left until the weekly sync-up meeting, it was recommended to extend the review into next week as. Finally it was agreed to update and deliver the preliminary report sharing details of the findings during the end-of-week sync-up. This sync-up is also used to set the focus/scope for the next week.

In the third week, the assessment team continued working on zDAO Token on Monday. We provided a heads-up that the snapshot functionality of zDAO Token was not working the same day. On Tuesday focus shifted towards reviewing changes to zAuction (135b2aaddcfc70775fd1916518c2cc05106621ec, remarks). On the same day the client provided an updated review commit for zDAO Token (81946d451e8a9962b0c0d6fc8222313ec115cd53) addressing the issue we reported on Monday. The client provided an updated review commit for zNS (ab7d62a7b8d51b04abea895e241245674a640fc1) on Wednesday and zNS (bc5fea725f84ae4025f5fb1a9f03fb7e9926859a) on Thursday.

As can be inferred from this timeline various parts of the codebases were undergoing changes while the review was performed which introduces inefficiencies and may have an impact on the review quality (reviewing frozen codebase vs. moving target). As discussed with the client we highly recommend to plan ahead for security activities, create a dedicated role that coordinates security on the team, and optimize the software development lifecycle to explicitly include security activities and key milestones, ensuring that code is frozen, quality tested, and security review readiness is established ahead of any security activities. It should also be noted that code-style and quality varies a lot for the different repositories under review which might suggest that there is a need to better anchor secure development practices in the development lifecycle.

After a one-week hiatus the assessment team continued reviewing the changes for zAuction and zBanc. The findings were initially provided with one combined report and per client request split into four individual reports.

2 Scope

Our review focused on the following components and code revisions:

2.1 Objectives

Together with the zer0 team, we identified the following priorities for our review:

1. Ensure that the system is implemented consistently with the intended functionality, and without unintended edge cases.
2. Identify known vulnerabilities particular to smart contract systems, as outlined in our Smart Contract Best Practices, and the Smart Contract Weakness Classification Registry.

2.2 Week - 1

• zNS (b05e503ea1ee87dbe62b1d58426aaa518068e395) (scope doc) (1, 2)
• zAuction (50d3b6ce6d7ee00e7181d5b2a9a2eedcdd3fdb72) (scope doc) (1, 2)

Original Scope overview document

2.3 Week - 2

• zBanc (48da0ac1eebbe31a74742f1ae4281b156f03a4bc) initial commit under review
• zBanc (3d6943e82c167c1ae90fb437f9e3ed1a7a7a94c4) updated commit under review (mid of week) (scope doc) (1)
  • Files in Scope:
    • contracts/converter/types/dynamic-liquid-token/DynamicLiquidTokenConverter
    • contracts/converter/types/dynamic-liquid-token/DynamicLiquidTokenConverterFactory
    • contracts/converter/ConverterUpgrader.sol (added handling new converterType 3)
• zDAO token provided on thursday (scope doc) (1)
  • Files in Scope:
    • ZeroDAOToken.sol
    • MerkleTokenAirdrop.sol
    • MerkleTokenVesting.sol
    • MerkleDistributor.sol
    • TokenVesting.sol
    • And any relevant Interfaces / base contracts

The zDAO review in week two was performed best effort from Thursday to Friday attempting to surface any obvious issues until the end-of-week sync-up meeting.

2.4 Week - 3

• Continuing on zDAO token (1b678cb3fc4a8d2ff3ef2d9c5625dff91f6054f6)
• Updated review commit for zAuction (135b2aaddcfc70775fd1916518c2cc05106621ec, 1) on Monday
• Updated review commit for zDAO Token (81946d451e8a9962b0c0d6fc8222313ec115cd53) on Tuesday
• Updated review commit for zNS (ab7d62a7b8d51b04abea895e241245674a640fc1) on Wednesday
• Updated review commit for zNS (bc5fea725f84ae4025f5fb1a9f03fb7e9926859a) on Thursday

2.5 Hiatus - 1 Week

The assessment continues for a final week after a one-week long hiatus.

2.6 Week - 4

• Updated review commit for zAuction (2f92aa1c9cd0c53ec046340d35152460a5fe7dd0, 1)
• Updated review commit for zAuction addressing our remarks
• Updated review commit for zBanc (ff3d91390099a4f729fe50c846485589de4f8173, 1)

3 Update: 23 Aug 2021 - WILD Token

On 20 Aug 2021 the client requested the inclusion of a deployed instance of the zDAOToken named WILD to this report. The WILD token at 0x2a3bff78b79a009976eea096a51a948a3dc00e34 (proxy) (implementation) is a slightly modified variant of the zDAOToken initially under review. A new function initializeImplementation() has been added for the purpose of initializing the implementation after deployment.

⇒  diff zDAO-Token/contracts/ZeroDAOToken.sol deployed.sol --unified
--- zDAO-Token/contracts/ZeroDAOToken.sol       2021-05-19 14:35:42.000000000 +0200
+++ deployed.sol        2021-08-23 13:44:09.000000000 +0200
@@ -31,6 +31,12 @@
     __ERC20Pausable_init();
   }

+  // Call this on the implementation contract (not the proxy)
+  function initializeImplementation() public initializer {
+    __Ownable_init();
+    _pause();
+  }
+
   /**
    * Mints new tokens.
    * @param account the account to mint the tokens for

We would like to note that instead of having a dedicated new method initializeImplementation() it would be more natural to enforce an initialization and pause() in the constructor instead. This way the implementation gets paused immediately at deployment and no other - potentially front-runnable - transaction is required. It should further be noted that the AdminUpgradeabilityProxy contract deployed at 0x2a3bff78b79a009976eea096a51a948a3dc00e34 was not in scope of this review. A bytecode verification was not performed. The deployed contract lexically matches the upstream ZeroDAOToken.

4 System Overview

This section describes the top-level/deployable contracts, their inheritance structure and interfaces, actors, permissions and important contract interactions of the initial system under review. This section does not take any fundamental changes into account that were introduced during or after the review was conducted.

Contracts are depicted as boxes. Public reachable interface methods are outlined as rows in the box. The 🔍 icon indicates that a method is declared as non-state-changing (view/pure) while other methods may change state. A yellow dashed row at the top of the contract shows inherited contracts. A green dashed row at the top of the contract indicates that that contract is used in a usingFor declaration. Modifiers used as ACL are connected as yellow bubbles in front of methods.

The zDAO Token specification can be found in the project’s repository. The system is comprised of three main components:

• zDAO Token
• Merkle Tree Token Vesting
• Merkle Tree Airdrop

The token is mintable, burnable, and pausable. The owner of the contract has wide-ranging power of the token and can mint/burn and pause at will. It is, therefore, important for users to verify that the token is owned by the zero DAO as mentioned in the specification:

The owner of the token contract has the ability to mint and burn tokens. The intended owner of this token is a Zer0 DAO.

The airdrop and vesting contracts are based on the Merkledistributor patterns. Users can claim tokens by proving to be part of the merkleroot. It should be noted that the merkle proof does not enforce that the proof item is a leaf node nor if the item is at the specific index. An attack on this is rather unlikely as it still means that someone would need to find a keccak preimage. Tokens that are not claimed remain in the contract forever. Users have to trust the deployer of the vesting or airdrop contracts to provide sufficient tokens in order for everyone to be able to claim their share. There is no way to verify that there are enough tokens which might suggest that users may want to claim early. Some vestings can be revoked. However, they can only be revoked if they’re claimed from the distributor. This means, that users might employ a strategy to claim late in order to avoid getting their vesting revoked. However, the deployer can claim + revoke for them (spending extra gas) to force a revocation.

5 Recommendations

function transferBulk(address[] calldata recipients, uint256 amount)
  external
  returns (bool)
{
  address sender = _msgSender();

  uint256 total = amount * recipients.length;
  require(
    _balances[sender] >= total,
    "ERC20: transfer amount exceeds balance"
  );

require(!paused(), "ERC20Pausable: token transfer while paused");

6 Findings

Each issue has an assigned severity:

• Minor issues are subjective in nature. They are typically suggestions around best practices or readability. Code maintainers should use their own judgment as to whether to address such issues.
• Medium issues are objective in nature but are not security vulnerabilities. These should be addressed unless there is a clear reason not to.
• Major issues are security vulnerabilities that may not be directly exploitable or may require certain conditions in order to be exploited. All major issues should be addressed.
• Critical issues are directly exploitable security vulnerabilities that need to be fixed.

contract ZeroDAOToken is
  OwnableUpgradeable,
  ERC20Upgradeable,
  ERC20PausableUpgradeable,
  ERC20SnapshotUpgradeable
{

_updateAccountSnapshot(sender);

function release(address beneficiary) public {
  uint256 unreleased = getReleasableAmount(beneficiary);
  require(unreleased > 0, "Nothing to release");

  TokenAward storage award = getTokenAwardStorage(beneficiary);
  award.released += unreleased;

  targetToken.safeTransfer(beneficiary, unreleased);

  emit Released(beneficiary, unreleased);
}

/**
 * @notice Allows the owner to revoke the vesting. Tokens already vested
 * are transfered to the beneficiary, the rest are returned to the owner.
 * @param beneficiary Who the tokens are being released to
 */
function revoke(address beneficiary) public onlyOwner {
  TokenAward storage award = getTokenAwardStorage(beneficiary);

  require(award.revocable, "Cannot be revoked");
  require(!award.revoked, "Already revoked");

  // Figure out how many tokens were owed up until revocation
  uint256 unreleased = getReleasableAmount(beneficiary);
  award.released += unreleased;

  uint256 refund = award.amount - award.released;

  // Mark award as revoked
  award.revoked = true;
  award.amount = award.released;

  // Transfer owed vested tokens to beneficiary
  targetToken.safeTransfer(beneficiary, unreleased);
  // Transfer unvested tokens to owner (revoked amount)
  targetToken.safeTransfer(owner(), refund);

  emit Released(beneficiary, unreleased);
  emit Revoked(beneficiary, refund);
}

function revoke(address beneficiary) public onlyOwner {
  TokenAward storage award = getTokenAwardStorage(beneficiary);

  require(award.revocable, "Cannot be revoked");
  require(!award.revoked, "Already revoked");

  // Figure out how many tokens were owed up until revocation
  uint256 unreleased = getReleasableAmount(beneficiary);
  award.released += unreleased;

  uint256 refund = award.amount - award.released;

  // Mark award as revoked
  award.revoked = true;
  award.amount = award.released;

  // Transfer owed vested tokens to beneficiary
  targetToken.safeTransfer(beneficiary, unreleased);
  // Transfer unvested tokens to owner (revoked amount)
  targetToken.safeTransfer(owner(), refund);

  emit Released(beneficiary, unreleased);
  emit Revoked(beneficiary, refund);
}

7 Document Change Log

Appendix 1 - Disclosure

ConsenSys Diligence (“CD”) typically receives compensation from one or more clients (the “Clients”) for performing the analysis contained in these reports (the “Reports”). The Reports may be distributed through other means, including via ConsenSys publications and other distributions.

The Reports are not an endorsement or indictment of any particular project or team, and the Reports do not guarantee the security of any particular project. This Report does not consider, and should not be interpreted as considering or having any bearing on, the potential economics of a token, token sale or any other product, service or other asset. Cryptographic tokens are emergent technologies and carry with them high levels of technical risk and uncertainty. No Report provides any warranty or representation to any Third-Party in any respect, including regarding the bugfree nature of code, the business model or proprietors of any such business model, and the legal compliance of any such business. No third party should rely on the Reports in any way, including for the purpose of making any decisions to buy or sell any token, product, service or other asset. Specifically, for the avoidance of doubt, this Report does not constitute investment advice, is not intended to be relied upon as investment advice, is not an endorsement of this project or team, and it is not a guarantee as to the absolute security of the project. CD owes no duty to any Third-Party by virtue of publishing these Reports.

PURPOSE OF REPORTS The Reports and the analysis described therein are created solely for Clients and published with their consent. The scope of our review is limited to a review of code and only the code we note as being within the scope of our review within this report. Any Solidity code itself presents unique and unquantifiable risks as the Solidity language itself remains under development and is subject to unknown risks and flaws. The review does not extend to the compiler layer, or any other areas beyond specified code that could present security risks. Cryptographic tokens are emergent technologies and carry with them high levels of technical risk and uncertainty. In some instances, we may perform penetration testing or infrastructure assessments depending on the scope of the particular engagement.

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