HOW SECURE ARE SMART CONTRACTS?
Meanwhile, they are as safe as the programmer’s best knowledge. Due to bad programming habits, some contain flaws that can be exploited so. what kind of security risks are there? In this article we will see what Token swap platform development are, the risks and possible solutions.
What is a smart contract?
A smart contract forces you to negotiate an agreement without the need for intermediaries, such as a lawyer. The agreed negotiations (transactions) are stored on the blockchain.
Transparency: Blockchain data is available for all to see.
Efficiency: there is no room for (errors) interpretations or lost documents. “Code is law” is a popular expression that describes this behavior.
Cost reduction: As middlemen are eliminated, costs are also significantly reduced.
Security: Cryptography is used to protect transactions and prevent attacks such as double spending.
While smart contracts are largely used to transfer cryptocurrency, they are increasingly being used to transfer value in general. Some examples:
For example, the “ RVW Token” allows movie enthusiasts to easily earn a portion of the profits generated by the upcoming movie “Roe v. Wade».
No late salary payments: Let’s say an employer keeps all of the company’s money inside a smart contract. The contract is scheduled to send a specific amount of money to each employee per month. The contract is also programmed not to be able to withdraw all the money available. Employees now have verifiable digital security, that they will get their money each month with no hassle.
Securing smart contracts
Smart contract security technically works through the same concepts as any software security. Coding, testing, assurance. There are specialized IT security insurances, and due to the young cryptocurrency market, only smart contract breach insurance companies are emerging.
Writing secure code: The first step of a secure application starts from within: the code itself. If the code is not built with the best programming practices, it widens the attack surface of a potential attacker. Especially if it is accessible on the Internet (such as smart contracts). Ethereum knows this and has published guidelines that help create smart contracts safely.
Test the code: Testing the code is another piece of the puzzle. They are essential for secure software. Here, execution is tested at runtime.
Securing the code — This is a pretty interesting angle to smart contracts — smart contract failure insurance. A next solution is Bridge mutual. They could have covered the harvest finance hack mentioned above, depending on their platform. Insurance is known to be used in various areas such as health, automobiles or work. Customers are assured to have a level of security about the time they spend in those areas. With the increased use of smart contracts, smart contract breach insurance may become more important, especially for companies with bigger pockets.
Panorama
The possible use of smart contracts is being discovered every day by now. Dredge allows everyone in the world to become an investment manager. This is partly possible due to the fact that smart contracts use data sources. What’s interesting about that is that the data sources could be anything: the Virustotal API or the US population count. So, in theory, there could be a malware investment manager, specializing in the amount of new malware that will appear the next day. And people could invest in their favorite!. That said, smart contracts are still a relatively new technology. Smart contracts are more secure if the programmer has knowledge in this field.
In the end, we see open source public blockchains as a net positive, largely because flaws are removed faster than private blockchains.
