A Solidity-to-CPN Approach Towards Formal Verification of Smart Contracts

Ikram Garfatta, Kais Klai, Mohamed Graiet, Walid Gaaloul

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

While Blockchains can open intriguing opportunities of research in many application contexts, they come with the risk of bringing new unconventional problems. In fact, because of the monetary value they hold, Blockchains have been subject to many attacks. Smart contracts, which are at the core of second-generation Blockchains, have been proven to be the origin of such attacks due to the exploitable vulnerabilities their code may hold. It is therefore an essential requirement to prove the correctness of the smart contracts to be deployed on a Blockchain to ensure its protection. The existing approaches have been focusing on targeting generic vulnerabilities like reentrancy, without offering the possibility to check temporal-based contract-specific properties. In this paper, we aim to address smart contracts verification while supporting such properties. We propose and implement a transformation of Solidity smart contracts into Coloured Petri nets and investigate the capability of existing model checking tools to check specific temporal properties of the formally modeled contract.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings - 2021 IEEE 30th International Conference on Enabling Technologies
Subtitle of host publicationInfrastructure for Collaborative Enterprises, WETICE 2021
PublisherIEEE Computer Society
Pages69-74
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9781665427890
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2021
Event30th IEEE International Conference on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructure for Collaborative Enterprises, WETICE 2021 - Virtual, Online, France
Duration: 27 Oct 202129 Oct 2021

Publication series

NameProceedings of the Workshop on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructure for Collaborative Enterprises, WETICE
Volume2021-October
ISSN (Print)1524-4547

Conference

Conference30th IEEE International Conference on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructure for Collaborative Enterprises, WETICE 2021
Country/TerritoryFrance
CityVirtual, Online
Period27/10/2129/10/21

Keywords

  • Blockchain
  • Coloured Petri Nets
  • Formal Verification
  • Smart Contract
  • Solidity
  • Temporal properties

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