A Formal Verification Framework for Security Issues of Blockchain Smart Contracts

Abstract

Blockchain technology has attracted more and more attention from academia and industry recently. Ethereum, which uses blockchain technology, is a distributed computing platform and operating system. Smart contracts are small programs deployed to the Ethereum blockchain for execution. Errors in smart contracts will lead to huge losses. Formal verification can provide a reliable guarantee for the security of blockchain smart contracts. In this paper, the formal method is applied to inspect the security issues of smart contracts. We summarize five kinds of security issues in smart contracts and present formal verification methods for these issues, thus establishing a formal verification framework that can effectively verify the security vulnerabilities of smart contracts. Furthermore, we present a complete formal verification of the Binance Coin (BNB) contract. It shows how to formally verify the above security issues based on the formal verification framework in a specific smart contract. All the proofs are checked formally using the Coq proof assistant in which contract model and specification are formalized. The formal work of this paper has a variety of essential applications, such as the verification of blockchain smart contracts, program verification, and the formal establishment of mathematical and computer theoretical foundations.

Formal Verification of Blockchain Smart Contracts via ATL Model Checking

“…Theorem proving is a formal verification technique that encodes a target system and its properties into a mathematical logic and derives a formal proof of satisfaction of the properties by axioms and proof rules. The theorem proving technique has been employed to verify the correctness of blockchain smart contracts [33]- [36]. In [34], Amani et al extend an existing EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) formalization in Isabelle/HOL by a sound program logic.…”

A security framework for Ethereum smart contracts

“…Nowadays there are many tools for the analysis of vulnerabilities in smart contracts and new ones appearing all the time. We have focused in this work on analyzing vulnerabilities in the source code of smart contracts, although there are other works that focus on vulnerabilities in consensus protocols, such as [19,20] or formal verification tools like [21].…”

Intrusion Detection System for the Internet of Things Based on Blockchain and Multi-Agent Systems

“…Ethereum [47] and Hyperledger Fabric [48] are the two most popular blockchain application development platforms. Their underlying technologies are the same.…”