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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 ****