Trusting a Smart Contract Means Trusting Its Owners: Understanding Centralization Risk

Lamby, Metin; Zieglmeier, Valentin; Ziegler, Christian

doi:10.1109/brains59668.2023.10316813

10.1109/BRAINS59668.2023.10316813

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Document type:: Konferenzbeitrag
Contribution type:: Textbeitrag / Aufsatz
Author(s):: Lamby, Metin; Zieglmeier, Valentin; Ziegler, Christian
Title:: Trusting a Smart Contract Means Trusting Its Owners: Understanding Centralization Risk
Abstract:: Smart contract access control mechanisms can introduce centralization into supposedly decentralized ecosystems. In our view, such centralization is an overlooked risk of smart contracts that underlies well-known smart contract security incidents. Critically, mitigating the known vulnerability of missing permission verification by implementing authorization patterns can in turn introduce centralization. To delineate the issue, we define centralization risk and describe smart contract source code patterns for Ethereum and Algorand that can introduce it to smart contracts. We explain under which circumstances the centralization can be exploited. Finally, we discuss implications of centralization risk for different smart contract stakeholders. «
Smart contract access control mechanisms can introduce centralization into supposedly decentralized ecosystems. In our view, such centralization is an overlooked risk of smart contracts that underlies well-known smart contract security incidents. Critically, mitigating the known vulnerability of missing permission verification by implementing authorization patterns can in turn introduce centralization. To delineate the issue, we define centralization risk and describe smart contract source code... »
Book / Congress title:: Proceedings of the 5th Conference on Blockchain Research & Applications for Innovative Networks and Services (BRAINS)
Publisher:: IEEE
Date of publication:: 17.11.2023
Year:: 2023
Pages:: 4
E-ISBN:: 979-8-3503-1782-4
Fulltext / DOI:: doi:10.1109/brains59668.2023.10316813
WWW:: arXiv version
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mediaTUM Gesamtbestand Einrichtungen Schools TUM School of Computation, Information and Technology Departments Computer Science Informatik 4 - Lehrstuhl für Software & Systems Engineering (Prof. Pretschner)

mediaTUM Gesamtbestand Hochschulbibliographie 2023 Schools und Fakultäten TUM School of Computation, Information and Technology Informatik 4 - Lehrstuhl für Software & Systems Engineering (Prof. Pretschner)