The Ethereum ecosystem continues to witness a flurry of activity that has individuals and organizations deploying token contracts, adding liquidity to pools and deploying smart contracts to support a wide range of business models. While notable, this growth has also been riddled with security exploits, leaving decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols vulnerable to hacks and scams.
For instance, recent findings from crypto intelligence firm Chainalysis show that crypto-related hacks increased by 58.3% from the beginning of the year through July 2022. The report further notes that $1.9 billion was lost to hacks during this timeframe — a figure that doesn’t include the $190 million Nomad bridge hack that occurred on Aug. 1, 2022.
Although open-source code may be beneficial for the blockchain industry, it can unfortunately easily be studied by cybercriminals looking for exploits. Security audits for smart contracts aim to solve these challenges, yet this procedure lacks industry standards, thus creating complexity.
An industry standard to ensure smart contract security
Chris Cordi, chair of the EthTrust Security Levels Working Group at the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA), told Cointelegraph that as the Ethereum blockchain industry grows, so does the need for a mature framework to assess the security of smart contracts.
In order to address this, Cordi, along with several EEA member representatives with auditing and security expertise, helped establish the EthTrust…
