Detection of Vulnerabilities of Blockchain Smart Contracts

With the wide application of Internet of Things and blockchain, research on smart contracts has received increased attention, and security threat detection for smart contracts is one of the main focuses. This article first introduces the common security vulnerabilities in blockchain smart contracts, and then classifies the vulnerabilities detection tools for smart contracts into six categories according to the different detection methods: 1) formal verification method; 2) symbol execution method; 3) fuzzy testing method; 4) intermediate representation method; 5) stain analysis method; and 6) deep learning method. We test 27 detection tools and analyze them from several perspectives, including the capability of detecting a smart contract version. Finally, it is concluded that most of the current vulnerability detection tools can only detect vulnerabilities in a single and old version of smart contracts. Although the deep learning method detects fewer types of smart contract vulnerabilities, it has higher detection accuracy and efficiency. Therefore, the combination of static detection methods, such as deep learning method and dynamic detection methods, including the fuzzy testing method to detect more types of vulnerabilities in multi-version smart contracts to achieve higher accuracy is a direction worthy of research in the future.

Automated summary

This article introduces common security vulnerabilities in blockchain smart contracts and classifies the detection tools into six categories, including formal verification, symbolic execution, fuzzy testing, intermediate representation, state analysis, and deep learning methods. The authors tested 27 detection tools and concluded that most of them only detect vulnerabilities in a single and old version of smart contracts. Although fewer types of vulnerabilities are detected, the deep learning method has higher accuracy and efficiency. Therefore, combining static detection methods like deep learning with dynamic methods like fuzzy testing to detect more types of vulnerabilities in multi-version smart contracts is a future research direction.