Key Smart Contract Vulnerabilities: Integer Overflow and Underflow Explained

As blockchain technology and smart contracts become integral to decentralized applications, the issue of integer overflow and underflow remains a pressing vulnerability. Integer overflow occurs when numbers exceed their maximum capacity, leading them to wrap around to their minimum values, while integer underflow happens when numbers drop below their minimum capacity, causing them to wrap around to their maximum values. These vulnerabilities can lead to unexpected behaviors and exploitation, posing significant risks to smart contracts. A key way to mitigate these issues is by using the SafeMath library provided by OpenZeppelin, which ensures safe arithmetic operations by automatically checking for overflow and underflow. This article, published by Mustafa Akbulut in Coinmonks, offers an in-depth look at these vulnerabilities, providing examples of susceptible code and demonstrating how adopting SafeMath can prevent potential exploits.