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Connext A-4

Security Audit

October 18th, 2023

Version 1.0.0

Presented by 0xMacro

Table of Contents

Introduction

This document includes the results of the security audit for Connext's smart contract code as found in the section titled ‘Source Code’. The security audit was performed by the Macro security team from October 9, 2023 to October 13, 2023.

The purpose of this audit is to review the source code of certain Connext Solidity contracts, and provide feedback on the design, architecture, and quality of the source code with an emphasis on validating the correctness and security of the software in its entirety.

Disclaimer: While Macro’s review is comprehensive and has surfaced some changes that should be made to the source code, this audit should not solely be relied upon for security, as no single audit is guaranteed to catch all possible bugs.

Overall Assessment

The following is an aggregation of issues found by the Macro Audit team:

Severity Count Acknowledged Won't Do Addressed
Low 1 - - 1
Code Quality 4 - - 4
Informational 1 - - -

Connext was quick to respond to these issues.

Specification

Our understanding of the specification was based on the following sources:

Source Code

The following source code was reviewed during the audit:

Specifically, we audited the following contracts within this repository, in the `packages/deployments/contracts/contracts/messaging/` directory:

Source Code SHA256
RootManager.sol

fc5e4d39388ed7773666b7cd1ca5267f363a01e691178b71520600175d47117b

connectors/SpokeConnector.sol

e44e905d731d0ff5840c440b6778dfcca93a67371d3f993e49978decbc0c6bb8

connectors/arbitrum/ArbitrumSpokeConnector.sol

296dbc8c9ddccc6263c74fc008b8ba365075ea96e9783a1de9704577e65f38ed

connectors/consensys/ConsensysSpokeConnector.sol

3fddec06d217ff129d90527dc313eafac588de2432fa455781d0770bb8bddaf5

connectors/gnosis/GnosisSpokeConnector.sol

aaa63fbef02c0f135799444d2ee3ef213f97b72b6feeac3956bd4d3e4a911f58

connectors/mainnet/MainnetSpokeConnector.sol

5f5829aad68788bc148cd181b25992068ce287cf353ba22a52cf5aad496bdef9

connectors/multichain/MultichainSpokeConnector.sol

95700d436db03358564dc644ad8b9059600bd1256b4a700e85dd716e1cd0ef6f

connectors/optimism/OptimismSpokeConnector.sol

adb8a0e6116bd52aa551389964385ca8cb7c933f16fe711917e133e99fd6874a

connectors/polygon/PolygonSpokeConnector.sol

94f428e4b9a0f3250472d9ac3de9d44712a7a3875459f510860c165c219182dc

connectors/polygonzk/PolygonZkSpokeConnector.sol

89f9c118a31f01e33516850ea47e3e097bf3f32c074fbd26bfcdef544f329ee3

connectors/wormhole/WormholeSpokeConnector.sol

5b91fd771fa43c7f23879c4373d86cc284a4c0ee47d347e3cb6198c5ba9e2e58

connectors/zksync/ZkSyncSpokeConnector.sol

3502d24729b6580aab63b0005bd8c6e1672f3bd5ec12b97a0e60df5fa3771b28

interfaces/IHubSpokeConnector.sol

219b250306c18a654a3f755bb03e287a769756b1cf492f993459ede81079e26a

Issue Descriptions and Recommendations

Click on an issue to jump to it, or scroll down to see them all.

Security Level Reference

We quantify issues in three parts:

  1. The high/medium/low/spec-breaking impact of the issue:
    • How bad things can get (for a vulnerability)
    • The significance of an improvement (for a code quality issue)
    • The amount of gas saved (for a gas optimization)
  2. The high/medium/low likelihood of the issue:
    • How likely is the issue to occur (for a vulnerability)
  3. The overall critical/high/medium/low severity of the issue.

This third part – the severity level – is a summary of how much consideration the client should give to fixing the issue. We assign severity according to the table of guidelines below:

Severity Description
(C-x)
Critical

We recommend the client must fix the issue, no matter what, because not fixing would mean significant funds/assets WILL be lost.

(H-x)
High

We recommend the client must address the issue, no matter what, because not fixing would be very bad, or some funds/assets will be lost, or the code’s behavior is against the provided spec.

(M-x)
Medium

We recommend the client to seriously consider fixing the issue, as the implications of not fixing the issue are severe enough to impact the project significantly, albiet not in an existential manner.

(L-x)
Low

The risk is small, unlikely, or may not relevant to the project in a meaningful way.

Whether or not the project wants to develop a fix is up to the goals and needs of the project.

(Q-x)
Code Quality

The issue identified does not pose any obvious risk, but fixing could improve overall code quality, on-chain composability, developer ergonomics, or even certain aspects of protocol design.

(I-x)
Informational

Warnings and things to keep in mind when operating the protocol. No immediate action required.

(G-x)
Gas Optimizations

The presented optimization suggestion would save an amount of gas significant enough, in our opinion, to be worth the development cost of implementing it.

Issue Details

L-1

Missing sanity check for disputeBlocks

Topic
Input Validation
Status
Impact
Medium
Likelihood
Low

In SpokeConnector’s constructor, disputedBlocks can be set to a value smaller than minDisputedBlocks, as there is no explicit check preventing this.

An appropriate check is done in the RootManager’s constructor, but omitted in the SpokeConnector’s constructor.

Remediations to Consider

Consider adding a check that reverts when disputedBlocks is smaller than minDisputedBlocks.

Q-1

Some functions can be set to external instead of public

Topic
Best Practice
Status
Quality Impact
Low

The following functions can be set to external instead of public as they are not being called within the contract:

In RootManager.sol:

  • setMinDisputeBlocks
  • setDisputeBlocks
  • setDelayBlocks
  • removeConnector
  • discardRoot

In SpokeConnector.sol:

  • addSender
  • removeSender
  • addProposer
  • removeProposer
  • setMinDisputeBlocks
  • setDisputeBlocks
  • setDelayBlocks
  • setRateLimitBlocks
  • removePendingAggregateRoot
Q-2

Unused events and errors

Topic
Extra Code
Status
Quality Impact
Low

The following events and errors are declared but not used anywhere in the code.

In RootManager.sol:

  • event RootPropagated
  • error RootManager_slowPropagate__OldAggregateRoot()

In SpokeConnector.sol:

  • error SpokeConnector_send__OptimisticModeOn()

Consider removing those declarations from the code.

Q-3

Use of events could be simplified

Topic
Events
Status
Quality Impact
Medium

In RootManager.sol, finalize(), and dequeue() functions emit two different events with some shared arguments for the same logic execution. This could be optimized by unifying these two events from each function into one.

Q-4

Inaccurate comment

Topic
Comments
Status
Quality Impact
Low

In RootManager.sol the function dequeue() has the following comment

/**
 * ...
 * @dev Reverts if no verified inbound roots are found.
 * ...
 */

However, the function does not revert and returns the current root and count for that case.

I-1

Optimistic mode increases centralization risks

Topic
Centralization
Impact
Informational

By enabling the optimistic mode, the propagation of messages to domains will completely bypass the native AMBs of each domain. A unique off-chain agent will be responsible for proposing aggregate roots and propagating them to every domain, concentrating the on-chain aggregation into one centric point.

Watchers will still execute their duties as protection against fraudulent messages but, at the moment, all the execution and safeguard controls will be centralized in Connext’s off-chain components.

Disclaimer

Macro makes no warranties, either express, implied, statutory, or otherwise, with respect to the services or deliverables provided in this report, and Macro specifically disclaims all implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, noninfringement and those arising from a course of dealing, usage or trade with respect thereto, and all such warranties are hereby excluded to the fullest extent permitted by law.

Macro will not be liable for any lost profits, business, contracts, revenue, goodwill, production, anticipated savings, loss of data, or costs of procurement of substitute goods or services or for any claim or demand by any other party. In no event will Macro be liable for consequential, incidental, special, indirect, or exemplary damages arising out of this agreement or any work statement, however caused and (to the fullest extent permitted by law) under any theory of liability (including negligence), even if Macro has been advised of the possibility of such damages.

The scope of this report and review is limited to a review of only the code presented by the Connext team and only the source code Macro notes as being within the scope of Macro’s review within this report. This report does not include an audit of the deployment scripts used to deploy the Solidity contracts in the repository corresponding to this audit. 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. In this report you may through hypertext or other computer links, gain access to websites operated by persons other than Macro. Such hyperlinks are provided for your reference and convenience only, and are the exclusive responsibility of such websites’ owners. You agree that Macro is not responsible for the content or operation of such websites, and that Macro shall have no liability to your or any other person or entity for the use of third party websites. Macro assumes no responsibility for the use of third party software and shall have no liability whatsoever to any person or entity for the accuracy or completeness of any outcome generated by such software.