A Survey on Vulnerability Detection in Ethereum Smart Contracts

PhD Qualifying Examination


Title: "A Survey on Vulnerability Detection in Ethereum Smart Contracts"

by

Mr. Wuqi ZHANG


Abstract:

The security of Ethereum smart contracts is of great importance in that they 
often manage digital assets of great value on the blockchain. Historical 
attacks on smart contracts have resulted in the loss of millions of dollars. 
Since smart contracts are immutable after they have been deployed, contract 
audit and vulnerability detection are valuable to eliminate the chances of such 
attacks before deployment. Various studies have been conducted to identify and 
detect vulnerabilities in Ethereum smart contracts, adopting various techniques 
ranging from static analysis, dynamic analysis to machine learning. Despite the 
efforts in the community, the detection of vulnerabilities in smart contracts 
is far from satisfactory. Several empirical studies have shown the limitations 
of many proposed techniques and tools.

In this survey, we systematically review the vulnerability detection techniques 
in Ethereum smart contracts. A taxonomy of common vulnerabilities is presented 
from the aspect of root causes. We introduce the common challenges in the 
analysis of smart contracts compared to that of conventional programs and 
provide a review of existing works of detecting vulnerabilities, including 
static analysis and dynamic analysis. Additionally, we show that existing, 
popular detection tools are not effective enough, as reported by several 
empirical studies. In the end, we summarize the limitations of existing 
techniques and identify possible future research directions and opportunities.


Date:			Wednesday, 7 July 2021

Time:                  	4:00pm - 6:00pm

Zoom meeting:
https://hkust.zoom.us/j/96994112085?pwd=UW1TaytUYjZFQkEvTDlDbWtuTGFQdz09

Committee Members:	Prof. Shing-Chi Cheung (Supervisor)
 			Dr. Shuai Wang (Chairperson)
 			Dr. Amir Goharshady
 			Prof. Raymond Wong


**** ALL are Welcome ****