An In-depth Analysis and Performance of Existing Techniques for Ethereum Smart Contract Vulnerability Detection

Abstract

The emergence of blockchain technologies especially Ethereum has brought about innovations in decentralized finance through the use of smart contracts. However, the security of these smart contracts remains a major issue because of the existing loopholes that make users lose their money and reduce their trust in the system. This paper provides an in-depth analysis of four widely used Ethereum smart contract vulnerability detection tools: Mythril, Slither, Oyente, and Securify. In the context of the study, the tools are compared and evaluated against the static, dynamic, and symbolic execution methods using precision, recall, execution time, scalability, and false-positive rates as the parameters for comparison. The analysis is performed on 500 real-world smart contracts from cryptocurrency platforms and decentralized finance applications. The study reveals the advantages and limitations of each tool and provides recommendations for developers, security auditors, and researchers on how to select the most suitable tool for their needs. This research is useful in improving the security of blockchain by pointing out the current weaknesses and prospects of vulnerability detection.