Ethereum’s smart contract bugs just keep on coming. Exchanges including Okex, Poloniex, Coinone, and Hitbtc today suspended deposits of ERC20 tokens following the discovery of a batch overflow bug written into the smart contracts governing numerous coins. The news comes in the same week that the ethereum community voted against restoring the lost ether that was locked up in the Parity smart contract bug last year.
Also read: Report Claims 34,000 Ethereum Smart Contracts Are Vulnerable to Bugs
Ethereum Tokens Battle a Nasty Bug
Creating an ethereum token that is free from exploitable bugs is a lot harder than it sounds. Earlier this year researchers claimed to have found 34,000 ethereum smart contracts that are vulnerable to bugs and a blog post authored this week has zeroed in on one in particular: a batch overflow bug that affects ERC20 smart contracts. Its discovery is serious enough to have prompted Okex to announce the suspension of ERC20 token deposits, writing:
We are suspending the deposits of all ERC-20 tokens due to the discovery of a new smart contract bug – “Batchoverflow”. By exploiting the bug, attackers can generate an extremely large amount of tokens, and deposit them into a normal address. This makes many of the ERC-20 tokens vulnerable to price manipulations of the attackers.
Okex added: “To protect public interest, we have decided to suspend the deposits of all ERC-20 tokens until the bug is fixed. Also, we have contacted the affected token teams to conduct investigation and take necessary measures to prevent the attack.” Numerous other exchanges have followed suit.
The SMT smart contract shows clear signs of exploitation
Squishing Bugs Is a Never-Ending Battle
The possibility of attackers being able to
