Smart Contract Vulnerabilities, Tools, and Benchmarks: An Updated Systematic Literature Review

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2412.01719v1
• Date: Mon, 02 Dec 2024 17:08:48 GMT
• Title: Smart Contract Vulnerabilities, Tools, and Benchmarks: An Updated Systematic Literature Review
• Authors: Gerardo Iuliano, Dario Di Nucci,
• Abstract summary: Smart contracts are self-executing programs on blockchain platforms like, which have revolutionized decentralized finance by enabling trustless transactions and the operation of decentralized applications. Despite their potential, the security of smart contracts remains a critical concern due to their immutability and transparency, which expose them to malicious actors. This paper presents a systematic literature review that explores vulnerabilities in smart contracts, focusing on automated detection tools and benchmark evaluation.
• Score: 2.4646766265478393
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• Abstract: Smart contracts are self-executing programs on blockchain platforms like Ethereum, which have revolutionized decentralized finance by enabling trustless transactions and the operation of decentralized applications. Despite their potential, the security of smart contracts remains a critical concern due to their immutability and transparency, which expose them to malicious actors. The connections of contracts further complicate vulnerability detection. This paper presents a systematic literature review that explores vulnerabilities in Ethereum smart contracts, focusing on automated detection tools and benchmark evaluation. We reviewed 1,888 studies from five digital libraries and five major software engineering conferences, applying a structured selection process that resulted in 131 high-quality studies. The key results include a hierarchical taxonomy of 101 vulnerabilities grouped into ten categories, a comprehensive list of 144 detection tools with corresponding functionalities, methods, and code transformation techniques, and a collection of 102 benchmarks used for tool evaluation. We conclude with insights on the current state of Ethereum smart contract security and directions for future research.

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