The new audit competition is with StakeWise! Up to $150K in prizes

HatsFinance
6 min readAug 18, 2023

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Starting August 21, 2023, at 15:00 GMT to September 5, 2023, at 15:00 GMT

Join our global hunt for StakeWise! Spot the bug and win a juicy reward.

We welcome all experience levels; whether you are a seasoned security veteran or amateur, show us what you got! Prizes will be given based on the severity level of each vulnerability found.

About the Competition

Starting August 21, a new vault will open in the Hats dApp — “StakeWise Audit competition”. Participants can check the contracts in scope and start searching for bugs.

StakeWise is a liquid staking service on Ethereum that allows anyone to benefit from the yields available on the Beacon Chain. StakeWise’s new product introduces a completely permissionless staking architecture that allows anyone to run nodes for the protocol and offers osETH, an overcollateralized LST, to make users’ stake liquid. The upgrade allows users to liquid stake on solo nodes, launch staking pools with osETH as an LST, and optimize for exact staking outcomes by choosing the node operators that stake their ETH.

Stay up-to-date with the competition, chat with the team, and get your questions answered by joining the dedicated Discord channel on the Hats server. All audit reports will be published in our Discord on the day of the competition. Don’t miss the latest updates and insights — join now and be the first to know!

Audit competition rewards:

High Severity:

The total prize pool for High severities will be ~$80K USDC. The total High severity reward will be divided between all accepted issues. However, there is a max reward cap of $18k* for a single high submission; each new issue gets 1 point.

For a submission to be considered a HIGH-risk vulnerability, issues must:

  • Direct theft of any user funds, whether at rest or in motion
  • Permanent freezing of user funds
  • Theft or permanent freezing of unclaimed yield or other assets
  • Protocol insolvency

*The 10% service fee is already deducted from this cap.

Medium Severity:

The total prize pool for Medium severities will be ~$48K USDC. Each new issue gets 1 point. The total Medium severity reward will be divided between all accepted issues. However, there is a max reward cap of $9k* for a single medium submission.

Medium severity vulnerability description:

Issues that lead to an economic loss but do not lead to direct loss of on-chain assets. Examples are:

  • Attacks that make essential functionality of the contracts temporarily unusable or inaccessible
  • Temporarily freezing of user funds

*The 10% service fee is already deducted from this cap.

Low severity:

The total prize pool for Low severities will be ~$20K USDC. Each new issue gets 1 point. The total Low severity reward will be divided between all accepted issues. However, there is a max reward cap of $900* for a single low submission.

Low severity vulnerability description:

  • Issues where the behavior of the contracts differs from the intended behavior (as described in the docs and by common sense), but no funds are at risk.
  • Gas griefing attacks (make users overpay for gas)
  • The 10% service fee is already deducted from this cap.

Gas Saving:

The total prize pool of Gas Saving severity will be ~$2K USDC.

This competition will reward participants with ideas to maximize gas savings. The first place gets ⅔ (66.6%) of the prize pool, and the second place gets ⅓ (33.3%). The guidelines are as follows:

- Submissions should contain links to zip files with a copy of the project repository containing the gas-saving changes commented with ‘//Gas saving, with the test suite unchanged.

- Please use google drive or a similar service and attach the link to your submission.

- Optimizations should use solidity (no inline assembly).

-Due to the rules category, submissions will not be public and will only be shared with the committee.

- Entries will be measured on the total average amount of gas used for each function (i.e., the sum of all numbers in the “avg” column), as reported by the hardhat-gas-reporter when running the tests in the repository.

Limitations

Reporters will not receive a bounty for:

Any known issue, such as

  • Issues mentioned in any previous audit reports
  • Vulnerabilities that were already made public (either by HATs or by a third party)
  • “Centralization risks” that are known and/or explicitly coded into the protocol (e.g. an administrator can upgrade crucial contracts and steal all funds)
  • Attacks that require access to leaked private keys or trusted addresses

Submission Guidelines — High/Medium/Low severities:

General information about the submission flow:

The Hats team will create a new repository called “StakeWise Audit Competition” under the Hats.finance organization on GitHub. The repository will be kept private until the competition starts. Hats bot will fork it on the first submission. To participate, security researchers must submit their findings on-chain, and an automatic GitHub issue will be generated in the forked repository.

How it works:

https://www.loom.com/share/d4d8076ebf414c44b1542cc73def06fa?start-embed-anon-signup=true

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

- Submissions should be made using our Dapp.

- You can submit one on-chain submission mentioning all issues found on the repo.

- All new submissions will be created on StakeWise forked repo on Hats: https://github.com/hats-finance

Please send a plain ASCII description in the following format:

- [TITLE]: a short description of the issue.

- SEVERITY (either High, Medium or Low; see the rules)

- Submission should contain at least one test demonstrating the problem and, if possible, a possible fix.

Report template:

- Description: Describe the context and the effect of the vulnerability.

- Attack scenario: Describe how the vulnerability can be exploited.

- Attachment:

1) Proof of Concept (PoC) File: You must provide a file containing a proof of concept (PoC) that demonstrates the vulnerability you have discovered.

2) Revised Code File (Optional): If possible, please provide a second file containing the revised code that offers a potential fix for the vulnerability. This file should include the following information:

* Comment with a clear explanation of the proposed fix.

* The revised code with your suggested changes.

* Any additional comments or explanations that clarify how the fix addresses the vulnerability.

- Recommendation: Describe a patch or a potential fix for the vulnerability.

*Due to the nature of the audit competition mechanism, the report will not be encrypted.

Evaluation of the submissions — Low/Medium/ High Severity

Each eligible bug submission receives 1 point in its severity category. Based on the number of eligible submissions, prize pools are divided.

Evaluation:

  • The first participant to submit an issue following guidelines gets a bounty for that issue (issues already received or out of scope will not receive a reward)
  • The competition starts on August 21 at 15:00 GMT and ends on September 5 at 15:00 GMT.
  • Issues that we are aware of (as witnessed by any open issues in the repository) will not be eligible for the bug bounty.

Compensation and Impact

A prize pool of $150K USDC and NFT rewards from our hacker collection will be distributed among security researchers who submit eligible vulnerability disclosures.

Compensation payment timeline:

  • Ten days after the competition ends, we will announce a winner list.
  • Alongside the winner announcement post, submitters can send disputes to the committee team and request clarification. They can also involve the Hats security team in the process. The goal is to facilitate honest and professional debate regarding disputed submissions.
  • Between 7–14 days after the announcement, we will publish a split contract where the winners can claim their rewards.
  • HATS Service Fee: A 10% deduction from the payout will always be allocated as the service fee.

Security researchers play a crucial role in fostering trust and confidence in web3 technologies, paving the way for mass adoption. By participating in this competition, security researchers can gain recognition for their work, raise their profile, and make valuable connections in the web3 security ecosystem. Ultimately, they can contribute to creating a more secure and equitable community.

Join the StakeWise Audit Competition today and be a part of the movement to secure the future of web3 and decentralized finance. Check the Hats Finance dApp for more information and in-scope contracts.

Stay tuned and check Hats dApp: https://app.hats.finance/vaults

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HatsFinance
HatsFinance

Written by HatsFinance

Hats.Finance a decentralized smart bug bounty marketplace. Permissionless, scalable, and open bug bounty protocol that allows anyone to provide liquidity.

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