> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.hackenproof.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.hackenproof.com/bug-bounty/vulnerability-classification/smart-contracts.md).

# Smart contracts

This table outlines how we categorize smart contract vulnerabilities by severity. Classifications are based on financial loss, disruption of core functionality, or manipulation of contract outcomes in live systems.

| **Severity**    | **Example Vulnerabilities**                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     |
| --------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| 🔴 **Critical** | <p>- <strong>Direct theft of funds or NFTs</strong><br>- <strong>Permanent freezing of funds or NFTs</strong><br>- <strong>Governance result manipulation</strong> (e.g., vote hijacking, quorum bypass)<br>- <strong>Protocol insolvency</strong> (e.g., under-collateralization, unbacked tokens, critical mispricing)<br>- <strong>Unauthorized Minting / Burning of Tokens</strong>: If not covered, include direct manipulation of token supply.</p>                                                                                                                       |
| 🟠 **High**     | <p>- <strong>Temporary freezing of funds or NFTs</strong><br>- <strong>Theft of unclaimed funds</strong> (e.g., yield, royalties)<br>- <strong>Permanent freezing of unclaimed funds</strong><br><strong>- Oracle Manipulation</strong> (High): Influencing on-chain price feeds or data sources.</p>                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           |
| 🟡 **Medium**   | <p>- <strong>Theft of gas</strong> (unbounded loops, expensive operations exploitable by attackers)<br>- <strong>Gas limit / Out-of-Gas vulnerabilities</strong><br>    - Poor gas handling leading to transaction failure, loss of funds, or halted functionality<br>- <strong>Denial of Service (DoS)</strong><br>    - Gas exhaustion, block stuffing, or malicious state manipulation that disrupts contract availability<br>- <strong>No-profit attacks (Griefing)</strong><br>    - Attacks that damage the protocol or users without financial gain for the attacker</p> |
| 🟢 **Low**      | <p>- <strong>Failure to deliver promised returns</strong><br>(e.g., staking pool advertises fixed APY but underperforms due to bugs or flawed logic)<br>- <strong>Uninitialized Storage Variables</strong>: Can lead to privilege escalation but often low-risk.</p>                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            |

If the issue is not under one of the mentioned vulnerabilities, we use the [Common Vulnerability Scoring System](https://www.first.org/cvss/user-guide) to assess the severity of your vulnerability.

**Disclaimer:** Any **privileged** actions may be considered grounds for a severity downgrade or vulnerability disqualification.


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