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Description
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https://archive.devcon.org/archive/watch/6/exploiting-inattention-and-optimism-in-daos/
Many DAOs have adopted Oracle based tools to make gassless votes executable. I demonstrated an exploit of one such oracle that was possible because the other users on the oracle app were undercapitalized or not paying attention. This type of attack highlights the weaknesses and risks of many assumptions people have about the attention span of DAO members, and execution conditions. I will show common misconfigurations of tools that are the most risky, and show people how they can fix them.
Speaker(s): Isaac Patka
Skill level: Intermediate
Track: Governance & Coordination
Keywords: governance,ux,exploit
Follow us: https://twitter.com/efdevcon, https://twitter.com/ethereum
Learn more about devcon: https://www.devcon.org/
Learn more about ethereum: https://ethereum.org/
Devcon is the Ethereum conference for developers, researchers, thinkers, and makers.
Devcon 6 was held in Bogotá, Colombia on Oct 11 - 14, 2022.
Devcon is organized and presented by the Ethereum Foundation, with the support of our sponsors. To find out more, please visit https://ethereum.foundation/
A
A
I'm
Isaac
I'm,
the
co-summer
of
the
logo
style
and
I'm.
Also
a
research
fellow
at
at
medigov
and
today,
I'll
be
talking
about
some
real
world
examples
of
how
Dows
have
been
exploited.
One,
By,
Me,
based
on
proof
of
inattention
and
just
generally
a
lack
of
monitoring
infrastructure,
so
I'll
be
detailing
how
I
was
able
to
steal
some
money
from
a
Dao,
how
other
people
are
attacking
them
even
as
much
as
like
last
night
and
how
you
should
be
protecting
your
infrastructure
from
this
type
of
vulnerability.
A
So
I've
been
referring
to
this
as
like
proof
of
inattention,
so
inattent
attention
is
really
the
most
scarce
resource
in
Dao's,
and
so
governance
tooling
should
be
designed
accordingly,
there's
all
sorts
of
optimistic
architectures
out
there
that
rely
on
people
to
actually
pay
attention,
and
that
sounds
pretty
simple,
but
like
people
paying
attention
is
not
something
that
you
can
actually
assume
is
is
happening.
So
safesnap
is
an
example.
A
I
think
is
one
of
the
most
widely
used
optimistic
architecture
Tools
in
Dao's,
which
uses
reality.e
to
bring
off-chain
gasless
votes
on
chain
for
execution,
but
molok
Dows
are
also
have
a
lazy
or
optimistic
consensus
mechanism
where
there's
no
minimum
core
for
proposals
to
pass.
Thankfully
they
do
require
a
sponsorship,
but
these
are
just
two
cases
of
things
where
people
could
very
easily
sneak
proposals
by
into
Dao's,
while
people
are
not
paying
attention.
A
So
the
main
thing
that
I
want
to
highlight
today
is
about
reality.east
I'm
called
on
to
set
up
many
Dows,
and
often
people
are
like
well.
Why
can't?
We
just
have
gasless
voting
and
use
reality.ether
execute
our
stuff
and
I.
Think
the
assumption
is
that
it's
this
like
magical
thing
that
brings
reality
and
Truth
on
chain,
but
that's
not
that's
not
inherent,
and
so
the
way
that
reality.eath
works
is
that
anybody
can
ask
a
question
of
the
Oracle.
That's
like
hey.
A
Did
this
Dow
vote
to
pay
me
twenty
thousand
dollars,
and
then
that
goes
in
this
really
confusing
format
to
reality.eve
that
you
can
see
in
the
middle,
which
is
like
almost
impossible
to
decipher?
And
then,
if
you
put
down
yes
and
nobody,
says
no
Then,
that
just
happens
and
so
like
it's
not
anything
that
actually
relies
on
a
vote
having
to
take
place.
Reality.Eath
is
a
general
purpose,
Oracle
that
you
can
use
when
attached
to
a
gnosis
safe
to
to
take
money.
A
So
this
is
just
a
configuration
of
how
that
architecture
usually
works.
Many
Dows
have
a
noses
safe,
which
has
multi-six
signers
many
Dows,
including
things
like
one
inch
I,
think
shape,
shift
a
lot
of
dows
out
there
have
that
use.
A
lot
of
voting
on
Snapshot
have
added
this
reality
on
each
zodiac
module.
When
you
add
a
zodiac
module
to
your
gnosa,
safe
you're,
basically
giving
it
super
user
privileges,
it
can
shortcut
all
signatures.
A
It
can
do
anything
with
any
assets
in
your
safe,
and
so
you
have
to
be
very
confident
in
how
you've
configured
that
so
reality.eth
is
the
separate
application
which
brings
the
which
brings
the
decisions
on
chain
which
get
executed
on
your
safe.
So
anything
in
your
safe,
the
nfts,
the
the
assets,
the
interaction
with
other
contracts,
it
can
all
be
executed
by
the
reality
module
and
anybody
in
the
world
can
ask
questions
of
the
reality.eath
module.
A
So
when
you're
setting
something
like
this
up,
there's
a
bunch
of
parameters
that
you
can
use
to
configure
and
it's
important
to
understand
the
impacts
of
every
single
one
of
these,
because
if
you
misconfigure
one
of
them,
then
you
can
make
yourself
significantly
more
vulnerable
to
an
attack.
So
when
you
set
up
this
Oracle,
you
want
to
set
up
a
timeout.
This
is
the
duration
during
which
people
can
answer
questions.
A
If
it's
24
hours,
then
your
question
is
live
for
24
hours
and
then
whatever
the
answer
is
at
the
end
of
that
period
becomes
the
truth.
If
it's
a
week,
then
you
have
a
week
to
answer
the
question.
Cooldown
is
like
a
grace
period
after
it,
but
after
the
truth
comes
on
chain,
but
before
it
can
actually
be
executed,
expiration
is
how
long
until
it
can,
how
long
it
maintains
stays.
A
Valid
and
bond
is
how
much
you
have
to
put
down
to
put
to
make
an
answer
and
there's
other
configurations,
but
I
have
some
nice
timelines
that
make
this
a
little
easier
to
understand.
So
the
way
that
we
intend
for
this
to
work
that
a
lot
of
dows
intend
for
this
to
work
is
that
they
host
a
they
host
a
vote
on
Snapshot
and
then,
once
that
voting
period
is
done.
A
There's
a
little
button
on
Snapshot,
which
says
ask
like
bring
like
execute
this,
and
so
that
brings
the
that
asks
reality.ether
question
and
then
it
goes
to
the
pool
of
people
that
sit
on
reality.e
and
answer
questions.
Unfortunately,
there's
like
three
people
that
sit
on
reality.eth
and
answer
questions,
so
usually
it's
the
main
person
asked
a
question
that
also
answers
the
Oracle
and
they
tend
to
answer
honestly
and
then
execute.
So
this
is
the
intended
scenario
where
you've
got
you've.
A
Had
your
gasless
vote,
you've
minimized
your
on-chain
transactions
and
then
everything
executed
according
to
plan.
So
there's
also
the
dishonest
Oracle
scenario,
where
any
attacker
can
pose
a
non-existent
proposal
to
reality.eth
and
submit
their
own
fraudulent
answer.
So
you
don't
even
have
to
go
to
snapshot.
You
don't
even
have
to
make
the
vote.
You
can
craft
the
transaction.
That's
like
hey!
Did
this
snapshot
vote
which
didn't
really
exist
pass
and
then
you
put
down
a
bond
and
say:
yes,
it
did,
and
then
you
wait
the
grace
the
vote.
A
The
then
you
wait
for
that
cooldown
period,
hoping
that
nobody's
paying
attention
and
then
congratulations.
You've
been
able
to
steal
money
from
the
Dow.
The
there's
a
few
different
ways
that
Dao's
can
protect
against
this
there's,
of
course
overriding
the
malicious
answer,
so
reality.eth
Works.
In
a
way
where
you
put
down
a
bond
to
answer
a
question,
you
can
put
down
double
the
previous
person's
bond
to
correct
their
answer
and
that
can
kind
of
continue.
Forever
Until
It
becomes
not
profitable
to
put
down
those
bonds.
A
A
So
if
a
dishonest
question
is
posed,
anybody
could
trigger
arbitration,
but
what
I've
found
in
surveying
a
lot
of
dows
on
on
reality.eath
and
snapshot,
most
of
them
kind
of
skipped,
electing
an
arbitrator
or
they
set
the
arbitrator
to
themselves,
and
so
like
these
very
simple
misconfigurations
can
make
it
so
it's
like.
Well
now
we
don't
have
an
arbitrator.
So
if
we're
not
paying
attention
for
a
week,
all
of
our
money
is
at
risk.
There's
also
the
opportunity
to
veto
if
there's
a
cool
down
period.
A
Surprisingly
also
I've
found
that
a
lot
of
the
Dows
that
I
looked
at
in
doing
this
research
just
skipped
cooldown.
They
were
like
now
like.
Let's
just
execute
this
as
fast
as
possible.
So
these
are
all
things
which
may
seem
like
logical
when
you're
setting
up
Dao,
assuming
like
we're
all
going
to
be
paying
attention
for
our
nft
investing
Dow
all
the
time.
A
But
then
people
go
on
vacation.
Your
multi-6
signers
go
to
Devcon.
They
leave
their
ledgers
at
home
and
now
you're
pretty
vulnerable,
so
each
one
of
these
can
be
misconfigured
and
is
often
misconfigured.
So
if
your
timeout
is
too
short,
then
it
makes
it
too
hard
to
catch
a
malicious
transaction.
If
your
cooldown
is
too
short,
you
have
no
opportunity
to
veto.
If
you
have
a
low
Bond,
it's
trivially
inexpensive,
somebody
could
put
down
a
ten
dollar
bond
for
a
fraudulent
answer.
A
If
you
have
no
arbitrator,
then
you
have
no
final
safeguards
against
that
and
and
a
absent
or
negligent
multi-six
signer
removes
The
veto
or
opportunity.
All
of
these
are
actively
being
exploited
even
like
yesterday,
as
I
was
saying
like.
This
is
a
on
a
very
much
ongoing
issue.
So
first
I'll
detail
how,
in
the
springtime
I
noticed
a
vulnerable
Honeypot,
actually
called
like
the
images
like
Honeypot
Dow,
dot
ether,
something
where
I
wanted
to
figure
out
how
easy
it
was
to
actually
exploit
this.
A
So
a
little
over
a
year
ago,
notice
put
up
this
bounty
they're
like
reality.eth.
Is
this
great
new
module?
Let's
put
fifty
thousand
dollars
in
here
and
see?
If
anybody
steals
it,
if
no
one
steals
it,
then
we
can
feel
confident
that
this
is
safe,
but,
like
so
many
things
in
in
crypto,
it
just
kind
of
went
under
the
radar.
No
one
really
noticed
so
this
thing's
at
dormant
I
have
the
address
here
and
I'll
share
this.
A
After
is
that
dormant
for
a
little
over
a
year,
no
activity,
and
so
I
I
decided
to
try
to
exploit
it,
but
I
was
doing
it
for
research
purposes,
so
I
live
tweeted
the
exploit
to
make
it
good
and
not
illegal.
So
so
what
I
figured
out
is
like
how
to
craft
the
exploit
using
the
ad
proposal
feature
on
etherscan,
where
you
craft
a
transaction,
and
in
this
case
I
was
like.
A
Okay
I
want
this
Dow
to
send
me
like
19,
420,
die
and
so
I
crafted
the
transaction
locally
and
then
hashed
it
and
included
it
on
the
either
scan
link.
Now
a
quirk
of
this
is
that
you
could
looking
at
this
proposal.
You
actually
don't
know
what
my
transaction
is,
because
it's
only
a
hash
of
the
transactions
that
gets
asked
to
the
Oracle.
So
this
is
another
of
another
scenario
where
like,
if
you
see
a
malicious
proposal,
you
don't
even
know
what
the
attacker
is
trying
to
do.
They
could
be
trying
to
take
one
dollar.
A
They
could
be
trying
to
drain
the
whole
treasury,
but
all
transactions
are
hashed
so
that
you,
you
have
absolutely
no
idea
how
what's
going
on
so
in
this
case,
I
submitted
a
fraudulent
proposal
and
then
I
went
on
to
reality.eth
and
I
paid
0.1
eth
as
a
bond
to
say.
Yes,
this
is
true.
It
was
fine
for
about
24
hours
and
then
I
saw
a
tweet
from
Oren
I
I
cheekily
called
my
proposal
ID.
A
Nothing
to
see
here,
because
I
kind
of
wanted
it
to
get
detected
I
could
have
put
a
proposal
ID,
which
Blended
in
even
better
but
I,
put
like
you
know
nothing
to
see
here
or
found
that
funny,
I
guess
and
so
Oren
and
some
of
the
other
folks
from
gnosis
were
like
hey.
It
looks
like
somebody's
actually
trying
to
drain
our
our
Nosa
safe.
We
should
veto
this,
but
much
like
the
nearest
safe
table.
Earlier
this
morning.
Nobody
was
present
to
veto
the
transaction,
so
this
is
just
and
being
a
Honeypot
Dao.
A
They
set
this
up
as
like
24-hour
periods,
whatever
it'll
be
fine.
I'll
go
back
to
my
funny
slides
for
pictures.
Thank
you,
but
it
was
too
late.
So
at
this
point,
I
was
like
on
another
call
with
another
thing,
and
people
were
like
asking
me:
questions
I,
can't
I
can't
talk
right
now.
I
need
to
finish
stealing
this
money,
so
I
went
on
I
executed
it
and
I
tweeted
about
that
as
well.
That
I
successfully
drained
19
420
die
from
this
Nosa
safe
on
nicely
offered
to
give
it
back.
A
A
So
some
folks
from
the
Opium
Network,
thankfully,
had
some
monitoring
infrastructure
set
up
on
one
of
their
safes
and
noticed
that
somebody
was
submitting
fraudulent
proposals
to
try
to
drain
their
entire
treasury,
but
being
nice
people
that
they
are
they
were
like.
Is
this
attacker
doing
this
to
anybody
else
and
what
they
actually
discovered
was
the
attacker
first
went
over,
went
after
this
like
really
easy
target.
It's
this
Dao
called
like
Lolly
Dao.
A
So
now
they
had
seven
and
a
half
like
stolen
eat
that
they
could
then
use
to
put
down
Bonds
on
other
things,
and
so
there's
this,
like
nft
collecting,
GAO
called
there's.
This
nft
collecting
framework
called
Seasons,
which
uses
Dows
that
set
this
up,
and
some
of
them
have,
like
you
know,
hundreds
of
me
bits
or
like
a
bunch
of
stuff
in
their
Dows,
and
so
the
attackers
started
going
after
those,
so
they
used
their
e
to
place
Bonds
on
all
of
these
other
Dows
saying.
Did
this
pass?
Did
this
pass?
A
A
So
they
put
these
like
six
proposals
down
they
put
down.
Thankfully,
the
seasons
folks
have
done
some
really
good
configurations
where
they
had
a
minimum
one
eth
Bond
a
seven-day
voting
period
And.
So
that
gave
us
enough
time
to
defend,
and
so
I
was
just
like.
Some
of
this
was
going
on
in
the
East
security
telegram
Channel
and
chatting
with
like
the
seasons.
Folks,
I
was
able
to
actually
go
in
and
put
down
like
eight
Ethan
bonds
to
overcome
the
four
eat
that
they
put
for
theirs.
A
If
they
then
came
back
and
like
put
down
16
being
like
no
I
really
want
to
steal
all
these
me
bits,
then
I
would
have
had
to
start
like
calling
up
some
friends
and
be
like.
Can
you
guys,
please
donate
some
e
so
that
I
can
like
defend
these
these
safes
from
this
attack?
Thankfully,
they
got
scared
and
ran
away
and
took
their
three
Ethan
profit
and
the
attacker
went
away.
But
this
is
continually
continuously
happening
for
the
next
week.
A
I
basically
had
this
screen
open
on
my
computer,
refreshing
like
every
hour
to
make
sure
that
the
attacker
wasn't
coming
back.
So
it's
it
was
a
bit
of
a
stressful
time
until
they
finally
really
gave
up
and
I
was
able
to
claim
their
eth
and
put
the
and
make
sure
that
the
honest
answer
made
its
way.
Unchained.
A
There's
no
monitoring
infrastructure
in
place,
and
so
any
member
could
be
like,
like
sneakily,
submit
a
proposal,
while
everyone's
at
a
conference
and
I'm
saying
this
to
try
to
scare
you
to
like
look
at
your
Dows
and
make
sure
no
one's
trying
to
take
things
from
you,
while
you're
sitting
here,
I
think
that
attacks
like
this
are
only
going
to
start
happening
more
and
more
frequently.
So
beyond
smart
contract
audits,
we
need
configuration,
audits,
it's
not
just
enough
to
have
the
core
logic
right.
It's
a
matter
of
how
you
stitch
together.
A
All
of
these
composable
pieces
into
something
that
is
also
audited
and
safe,
and
so
configuration
audits
are
something
that
I
really
want
to
see
become
more
prevalent
in
Dao's
like
whether
it's
the
gnosis
safe,
the
no
the
safe
app
where
it's
like.
Hey.
If
you
add
these
modules,
you
might
be
vulnerable
here
or
like
hey.
You
have
like
a
green
check
mark
this.
A
So
I
have
some
tips
on
how
you
can
protect
you
and
your
Dows
from
people
like
me
and
other
and
people
that
are
worse.
This
is
a
bunch
of
texts,
but
I
made
this
to
like
kind
of
take
pictures
and
I'll
post
this
out
later,
I
think
it's
as
somebody
that
has
went
through
like
a
sock,
2
audit
with
a
startup
before
crypto
stuff,
there's
actually
a
lot
of
stuff
from
those
processes
that
I
think
Dallas
could
adopt.
They
make
you
think
about.
A
What's
your
resiliency
plan,
what's
your
continuity
plan
who
has
control
over
this
administrative
thing?
Who
like
is
there
some
random
multi-sig
somewhere?
That
actually
holds
veto
power
to
the
Dow
that
we're
just
too
lazy
to
get
rid
of
there's
a
critical
need
for
more
monitoring
infrastructure,
so
I
know
a
lot
of
people
are
working
on
dashboards
for
individuals
like
track
their
portfolios
and
stuff,
but
we
really
critically
need
more
info
like
monitoring
infrastructure
for
Dow
tooling,
that
can,
like
you
know,
woof
style,
I,
don't
know
ping
you
everywhere.
A
Every
time
there's
like
some
some
sort
of
big
transaction
going
on
there's
cool
automation,
tools
that
I
think
are
underused
as
well.
Open
Zeppelin
has
a
tool
called
Defender
which
I
really
like
for
identifying
dangerous
scenarios,
setting
up
alerts
and
then
actually
submitting
triggers
to
like
pause
contracts.
You
can
create
these
like
Defender
bots
on
that
tool,
that
look
for
like
a
malicious
proposal
or
like
maybe
your
dad
was
going
into
sleep
mode,
and
you
want
to
set
up
something
where
it's
like.
A
Okay,
if
anyone
tries
interacting
with
a
smart
contract,
this
pause
transaction
is
going
to
go
out
and
you
can
like
pre-sign
a
transaction
pre-load
it
and
like
have
all
these
defense
mechanisms
ready
to
go
for
your
communities.
I
think
it's
also
really
cool
to
see
that
simulation
tools
are
getting
more
used
because
I,
don't
think
I've
seen
an
attack
like
this,
but
I
wouldn't
be
surprised.
If
somebody
submitted
a
proposal
at
some
point
that
was
like
hey,
we
should
submit
my
monthly
payroll,
but
then
they
just
add
a
zero
to
their
paycheck.
A
That
would
be
pretty
hard
to
detect
and
most
people
that
are
like
on
a
bunch
of
multi-sigs
or,
like
a
proof,
approved
approve
approved,
but
thankfully
safe
has
added
like
tenderly
simulations,
where
you
can
just
say
like
okay.
What
would
happen
if
I
actually
approve
this
and
you
can
choose
to
say?
Okay?
Is
that
person
getting
paid
one
thousand
dollars
a
month
or
a
hundred
thousand
dollars
this
month?
Simulation
tools
and
Dows
are
are
critically
needed
as
well.
A
We
need
to
conduct
regular
configuration
Audits
and
detect
when
configurations
change
all
the
things
that
in
like
Legacy
companies
are
really
boring
and
they
have
entire
Departments
of
people
for
things
like
change,
management
are
actually
needed
in,
like
composable
governance
settings.
We
should
always
minimize
cross-chain
communication,
anytime
you're,
using
a
bridge
you're,
probably
just
waiting
to
get
exploited.
A
We
need
to
implement
spending
limits
and
transaction
guards.
Everybody
should
use
Hardware
wallets,
not
back
up
their
stuff
in,
and
this
is
just
like
general
purpose
like
house
housekeeping
stuff,
but
like,
but
a
last
one
that
I
think
would
be
cool
is
if
we
could
set
up
some
sort
of
like
on-call
ships
and
rotations
for
people
that
are
on,
like
60
multi-cigs,
to
make
sure
that
they
know
that
hey
this
person's
on
vacation,
these
six
people
are
in
Bogota.
We
need
to
like
keep
track
of.
A
What's
going
on
so
I
mean
in
conclusion,
composable
governance,
tooling,
is
why
Dows
are
going
to
be
great
and
powerful
and
transformative,
but
we
also
need
to
be
very
careful
about
how
we
configure
things,
or
else
we
are
just
going
to
start
seeing
like
floods
of
militia
proposals
coming
in
and
people
are
just
going
to
get
overwhelmed
so
take
care
of
your
Dows
and
protect
them.
Thank
you.
B
A
That
make
sense,
it
does
make
sense,
and
I
was
chatting
with
some
folks
earlier
about
better
architectures
for
this
kind
of
stuff,
where
proposals
should
actually
be
minimized
in
Dows,
where
you
can
set
up
different
governance
architectures
that
are
much
more
like
set
it
and
forget
it,
like
the
folks
at
protocol
Guild
the
way
that
they
are,
and
also
like
the
build
Guild.
The
way
that
they
have
their
payroll
set
up
is
like
it's
just
streams
which
are
set
up
until
they're,
not,
and
so
like
I.
A
Think
that
more
things
like
that,
where
governance
is
a
you
set
it,
and
you
only
have
to
do
governance
when
you
want
to
change
things
versus
like
constantly
having
to
do
proposals
makes
it
so
that
you
could
have
like
much
longer
voting
periods.
Much
more
safety
and
I.
Think
that,
like
generally
architectures,
that
prioritize,
that
over
over,
like
active,
like
attention-based
governance,
would
be
would
be
better
and
then
we're
not
just
like
flooded
with
notifications,
which
is
not
necessarily
better
right.