Designing Secure Ethereum Smart Contracts: A Finite State Machine Based Approach

Anastasia Mavridou, Aron Laszka

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

127 Scopus citations

Abstract

The adoption of blockchain-based distributed computation platforms is growing fast. Some of these platforms, such as Ethereum, provide support for implementing smart contracts, which are envisioned to have novel applications in a broad range of areas, including finance and the Internet-of-Things. However, a significant number of smart contracts deployed in practice suffer from security vulnerabilities, which enable malicious users to steal assets from a contract or to cause damage. Vulnerabilities present a serious issue since contracts may handle financial assets of considerable value, and contract bugs are non-fixable by design. To help developers create more secure smart contracts, we introduce FSolidM, a framework rooted in rigorous semantics for designing contracts as Finite State Machines (FSM). We present a tool for creating FSM on an easy-to-use graphical interface and for automatically generating Ethereum contracts. Further, we introduce a set of design patterns, which we implement as plugins that developers can easily add to their contracts to enhance security and functionality.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationFinancial Cryptography and Data Security - 22nd International Conference, FC 2018, Revised Selected Papers
EditorsSarah Meiklejohn, Kazue Sako
PublisherSpringer Verlag
Pages523-540
Number of pages18
ISBN (Print)9783662583869
DOIs
StatePublished - 2018
Event22nd International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security, 2018 - Nieuwpoort, Belgium
Duration: Feb 26 2018Mar 2 2018

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume10957 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference22nd International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security, 2018
Country/TerritoryBelgium
CityNieuwpoort
Period2/26/183/2/18

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • General Computer Science

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Designing Secure Ethereum Smart Contracts: A Finite State Machine Based Approach'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this