Detailed Instructions

Begin by identifying the core sections of the report. Every professional audit report should contain an Executive Summary, a detailed Findings section, and a Scope definition. The Executive Summary provides a high-level overview of the audit's conclusions, including the overall risk assessment (e.g., Low, Medium, High severity) and a summary of critical issues. The Findings section is the heart of the report, listing each vulnerability with a title, severity, location, and description. Crucially, review the Audit Scope to confirm which contracts and files were examined. For example, the scope might list specific Solidity files and their commit hashes.

• Sub-step 1: Locate and read the Executive Summary for the auditor's final verdict and total issue count.
• Sub-step 2: Examine the Scope section to verify the exact contract versions audited (e.g., MyToken.sol at commit a1b2c3d).
• Sub-step 3: Skim the Findings table of contents to understand the categorization of issues (Critical, High, Medium, Low, Informational).

Tip: If the report lacks these fundamental sections, consider it a major red flag regarding the audit's thoroughness.

Detailed Instructions

Systematically go through each finding. Don't just read the title; understand the root cause and potential impact. A finding titled "Reentrancy Vulnerability" is severe because it can allow an attacker to drain funds. Pay special attention to findings marked as Critical or High severity, as these represent immediate threats to funds or core protocol logic. For each finding, the report should specify the vulnerable code location. Look for a code snippet and a Proof of Concept (PoC) that demonstrates the exploit. For instance, a finding might show a function missing a checks-effects-interactions pattern.

solidityCopy
// Vulnerable Code Example
function withdraw(uint _amount) public {
    require(balances[msg.sender] >= _amount, "Insufficient balance");
    (bool success, ) = msg.sender.call{value: _amount}(""); // INTERACTION
    balances[msg.sender] -= _amount; // EFFECTS (Too Late!)
}

• Sub-step 1: Prioritize reading all Critical and High severity findings first.
• Sub-step 2: For each, trace the provided file path and line number (e.g., contracts/Vault.sol#L42-L58).
• Sub-step 3: Evaluate the provided PoC to see if you understand how an attacker would trigger the bug.

Tip: A good report will also state whether the finding is a false positive or has been acknowledged and fixed by the development team.

Detailed Instructions

A report is only useful if the problems are fixed. Look for an Appendix or Remediation section that details the fixes. The auditor should have reviewed the team's patches. Your job is to verify that the fix correctly addresses the root cause and doesn't introduce new issues. Compare the patched code against the original vulnerable code. For a reentrancy fix, you should see the use of a reentrancy guard (like OpenZeppelin's ReentrancyGuard) or the proper enforcement of the checks-effects-interactions pattern. If the report includes a final commit hash for the fixes, such as fix: patch reentrancy in Vault e4f5g6h7, clone the repository and check the diff.

solidityCopy
// Fixed Code Example
import "@openzeppelin/contracts/security/ReentrancyGuard.sol";
contract Vault is ReentrancyGuard {
    function withdraw(uint _amount) public nonReentrant {
        require(balances[msg.sender] >= _amount, "Insufficient balance");
        balances[msg.sender] -= _amount; // EFFECTS first
        (bool success, ) = msg.sender.call{value: _amount}(""); // INTERACTION last
    }
}

• Sub-step 1: Locate the remediation status for every finding (e.g., "Fixed", "Acknowledged").
• Sub-step 2: For "Fixed" issues, find the corresponding code diff or explanation of the fix.
• Sub-step 3: If possible, run the auditor's provided test cases against the fixed code to verify the exploit is no longer possible.

Tip: An unfixed Critical or High severity issue should be a deal-breaker for using the protocol until it is resolved.

Detailed Instructions

An audit is a snapshot in time, not a guarantee of perfect security. Contextualize the results. Who was the auditor? A reputable firm like Trail of Bits, OpenZeppelin, or Quantstamp carries more weight. Was this the first audit or a follow-up? Multiple audits are a positive sign. Check if the test coverage is mentioned; high coverage (e.g., >90%) is ideal. Crucially, understand what was not covered: the Audit Scope explicitly lists exclusions, such as economic model risks, front-end code, or oracle reliability. These are potential blind spots. Finally, seek independent review. Check if the project's code is open-source and if community members have raised concerns on forums or GitHub. Use tools like slither or mythril for a basic static analysis yourself.

• Sub-step 1: Research the auditing firm's reputation and the date of the audit (older reports may be stale).
• Sub-step 2: Note any major system components explicitly excluded from the scope.
• Sub-step 3: Run a simple command-line security tool on the verified contract address or source code as a sanity check (e.g., slither 0x742d35Cc6634C0532925a3b844Bc9e90a6b5a9c8).

Tip: A clean audit report is a strong positive, but it is just one layer of due diligence. Always practice the principle of trust, but verify.