README.md

insecure_account_close

What it does:

Checks for attempts to close an account by setting its lamports to 0 but not also clearing its data.

Why is this bad?

See: https://docs.solana.com/developing/programming-model/transactions#multiple-instructions-in-a-single-transaction

An example of where this could be a problem is if a token program, upon transferring the token out of an account, sets the account's lamports to zero, assuming it will be deleted by the runtime. If the program does not zero out the account's data, a malicious user could trail this instruction with another that transfers the tokens a second time.

Works on:

• Anchor
• Non Anchor

Known problems:

None

Example:

See https://github.com/coral-xyz/sealevel-attacks/tree/master/programs/9-closing-accounts for examples of insecure, secure and recommended approach to close an account.

How the lint is implemented:

• For every expression like (*(*some_expr).lamports.borrow_mut()) = 0;; assigning 0 to account's lamports
• If the body enclosing the expression is_force_defund, ignore the expression
  • The body contains expressions some_expr.copy_from_slice(&another_expr[0..8]) and comparison expression comparing an [u8; 8] value.
• Else If the body contains a manual clear of the account data
  • If the body has a for loop like pattern and the loop body has an expression assigning zero
    • Assume the loop is clearing the account data and the expression is safe
• Else
  • report the expression as vulnerable