Smart contractshave become a key component of the cryptocurrency and blockchain ecosystem. However, due to their complexity, smart contracts are prone to errors and security risks.
This is why tools such as Slither are invaluable in providing security and reliability for smart contracts. In today’s lesson, we’ll look at exactly how Slither works and what benefits it brings to developerssmart contracts.
What is Slither? Definition of static safety analyser
Slither is a static security analyser for intelligent contracts. It was developed in 2018 by Trial of Bits.
According to what we read on the official site, Slither is a framework for static analysis of the Solidity language. It is written in Python 3 and runs a set of vulnerability detectors. In addition, it provides information about the details of a given contract and provides an API, making it easy to write detailed analyses.
By using Sliter, developers can easily find security gaps, improve code and prototype custom analyses even faster.
In its current form, Slither is used for the following tasks:
- Automatically detects security vulnerabilities without user intervention.
- Automatically detects optimisations of a given smart contract. We are talking about optimisations of code that are ignored by compilers.
- Slither summarises the information about the contracts in question in detail and facilitates analysis of the code base concerned.
- Users can interact with Slither through its API.
- Slither is the first framework, designed to analyse static open-source for Solidity.
What is a static analysis?
This is one method of code analysis that aims to examine the source code, without executing it. Static analysis aims to identify potential problems and vulnerabilities by analysing the structure, syntax and logic of the code.
Static analysis does not interfere with the code and provides insight into potential gaps in the code before implementation. It is therefore the opposite of dynamic analysis.
How does Slither work?
The software works as an integration of the Slither core and the intelligent contract vulnerability detection system. In practice, it works in several steps that result in a thorough analysis of the source code of a given smart contract. These are:
- AST (Abstract Syntax Tree) analysis.
Slither starts analysing the source code of a given smart contract by creating its syntax tree (AST). An AST is a data structure that represents the source code of a given smart contract, allowing its analysis and the relationships between its elements.
- Rule analysis.
Slither uses a set of predefined analysis rules that are run on AST of the source code. These rules cover various aspects of analysis, such as finding potential errors, coding conventions, and identifying variables and functions.
- Detection of risks
Slither identifies potential bugs and risks associated with the source code of a smart contract. These can be security risks, such as vulnerabilities, or general performance and code design issues.
- Report generation
Once the analysis is complete, Slither generates a report containing the results of the analysis along with a description of potential errors and suggestions for possible solutions. This report helps developers to understand where potential risks lie and how they can be resolved.
- Amendments and tests
Based on the Slither report, developers can make corrections to the code of a given smart contract. After the changes have been made, it is advisable to run the verification again to check that the issues have been resolved and that the code works correctly.
How do I use the Slither software?
If you want to scan your intelligent contracts for security vulnerabilities, enter the directory where the smart contracts are located. Then run the “slither” command.
Executing this command will instruct the software to analyse all intelligent contracts files in a given directory. Slither will perform a static analysis of the code and generate a report that will include all the security vulnerabilities it has identified. It will also suggest optimisation of the code in question.
The report thus generated is a treasure trove of knowledge for developers. With it, appropriate action can be taken to minimise potential risks. In this case, it is important to remember that Slitheranalysis is admittedly a detailed analysis, but it should always be supplemented by a manual code review. Just to be safe.
Using Slither analysis is an important step in the process of securing smart contracts. To make them fully secure, you need to take a more comprehensive approach to this, which includes regular audits, bug bounty programmes and updates.
What role does Slither play in the development of smart contracts?
It is an invaluable tool in the process of creating intelligent contracts. With this software, developers can detect and eliminate security vulnerabilities in a contract early on.
Interesting fact: Before auditing intelligent contracts in a given company, it is recommended that all security vulnerabilities are first detected using Slither.
Benefits of using Slither
First and foremost, security. Slither helps identify potential vulnerabilities of a given contract to attacks and bugs, related to security, allowing them to be fixed before the smart contract is implemented.
The second benefit is improved code quality. The analysis performed with Slither helps to improve the quality of the source code, by indicating coding conventions and potential optimisation.
Slither saves time. Early code analysis allows problems to be solved early in development. This saves time and resources to fix bugs already at the smart contract stage.
The software is also a tool that improves audits. For those responsible for these functions, Slither facilitates code analysis and identifies potential risks.
Summary
Slither is a powerful static analysis tool for smart contracts. It works by analysing the source code, detects potential bugs and risks and generates a report. Using Slither is an invaluable aid in ensuring the security and reliability of smart contracts, which is extremely important in the blockchainecosystem.
Developers and auditors should strongly consider using it in their work to minimise risk and ensure the quality of their projects.
