Why Internal Review Before External Audit
Leading audit firms charge $15,000–$50,000 for a thorough smart contract review. Our internal process consistently catches 60–70% of issues before the external audit sees the code — at zero additional cost to the client.
Finding 1: Reentrancy in Withdrawal
Balance updated after the ETH transfer, allowing recursive drain before state was updated. Fix: Checks-Effects-Interactions pattern enforced as a code review rule, plus OpenZeppelin ReentrancyGuard on every function that transfers ETH or calls external contracts.
Finding 2: Oracle Manipulation via Spot Price
Protocol used DEX instantaneous spot price as its price oracle. A flash loan can move a low-liquidity pool 1000× in one transaction, drain the protocol, and repay in the same block. Fix: Chainlink TWAP over a 30-minute minimum observation window with a 5% price movement circuit breaker.
Finding 3: Missing Access Control
mintTokens() function was public with no modifier — anyone could mint unlimited token supply. Fix: OpenZeppelin AccessControl with explicit ADMIN_ROLE requirement on all privileged state-changing functions, defined in the architecture document before coding begins.
Finding 4: Integer Overflow in Reward Calculation
An unchecked arithmetic block in a staking reward calculation would overflow uint256 for large deposits held over long periods. Fix: Solidity 0.8+ overflow protection is on by default — never use unchecked blocks in any financial calculation.
Finding 5: MEV Frontrunning in Liquidations
Liquidation bonus visible in the public mempool — MEV bots systematically front-run legitimate liquidators. Fix: commit-reveal scheme for small protocols; Flashbots Protect for larger deployments where MEV is a systematic concern.