Over two audits in 2023, we reviewed a blockchain system developed by Axiom that allows computing over the entire history of Ethereum, all verified by zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) on-chain using ZK-verified elliptic curve and SNARK recursion operations. This system is built using the Halo2 framework—a complex, emerging technology that presents many challenges when building a secure application, including potential under-constrained issues resulting from its low-level API.

Introducing the Custodial Stablecoin Rekt Test; a new spin on the classic Rekt Test for evaluating the security maturity of stablecoin issuers.

This post will examine the cryptography behind passkeys, the guarantees they do or do not give, and interesting cryptographic things you can do with them, such as generating cryptographic keys and storing certificates.

Datasig generates compact, unique fingerprints for AI/ML datasets that let you compare training data with high accuracy—without needing access to the raw data itself. This critical capability helps AIBOM (AI bill of materials) tools detect data-borne vulnerabilities that traditional security tools completely miss.

See how we slashed PyPI’s test suite runtime from 163 to 30 seconds. The techniques we share can help you dramatically improve your own project’s testing performance without sacrificing coverage.

This post describes how many examples of MCP software store long-term API keys for third-party services in plaintext on the local filesystem, often with insecure, world-readable permissions.

This post describes attacks using ANSI terminal code escape sequences to hide malicious instructions to the LLM, leveraging the line jumping vulnerability we discovered in MCP.

Malicious MCP servers can inject trigger phrases into tool descriptions to exfiltrate entire conversation histories and steal sensitive credentials and IP.

Trail of Bits’ Buttercup competes in DARPA’s AIxCC Finals with expanded resources, multiple rounds, new challenge types, and custom AI model capabilities.

MCP’s ’line jumping’ vulnerability lets malicious servers inject prompts through tool descriptions to manipulate AI behavior before tools are ever invoked.

We’re working on integrating an ASN.1 API into PyCA Cryptography, built on top of the same Rust ASN.1 implementation already used by Cryptography’s X.509 APIs.

This post describes a sophisticated social engineering campaign using Zoom’s remote control feature and provides technical solutions to protect organizations against this attack vector.

Learn snapshot fuzzing for kernel-level testing. New Testing Handbook section shows how to test drivers, antivirus software, and complex kernel components.

Trail of Bits’ independent study finds OpenSearch v2.17.1 is 1.6x faster than Elasticsearch v8.15.4 on Big5 workload and 11% faster on vector search.

Learn how to integrate TRAIL threat modeling into your SDLC, adapt and maintain models as your system evolves, and use them to identify security control gaps.

Discover TRAIL, Trail of Bits’ systematic threat modeling approach that identifies design-level security weaknesses and provides actionable remediation guidance.

Learn how comprehensive threat modeling could have identified the operational security gaps that led to Bybit’s $1.5B hack and prevented similar breaches.

The $1.5B Bybit Hack demonstrates how the Era of Operational Security Failures has arrived, and most cryptocurrency companies are not prepared for its implications.

We developed a simple CodeQL query to find denial-of-service (DoS) vulnerabilities in several high-profile Java projects.

Introducing Medusa v1, a cutting-edge fuzzing framework designed to enhance smart contract security.

TVM Ventures has selected Trail of Bits as its preferred security partner to strengthen the TON developer ecosystem. Through this partnership, we’ll lead the development of DeFi protocol standards and provide comprehensive security services to contest-winning projects deploying on TON. TVM Ventures will host ongoing developer contests where teams can showcase innovative applications that advance […]

Writing smart contracts requires a higher level of security assurance than most other fields of software engineering. The industry has evolved from simple ERC20 tokens to complex, multi-component DeFi systems that leverage domain-specific algorithms and handle significant monetary value. This evolution has unlocked immense potential but has also introduced an escalating number […]

This blog post highlights key points from our new white paper Preventing Account Takeovers on Centralized Cryptocurrency Exchanges, which documents ATO-related attack vectors and defenses tailored to CEXes. Imagine trying to log in to your centralized cryptocurrency exchange (CEX) account and your password and username just… don’t work. You […]

PyPI now supports marking projects as archived. Project owners can now archive their project to let users know that the project is not expected to receive any more updates. Project archival is a single piece in a larger supply-chain security puzzle: by exposing archival statuses, PyPI enables downstream consumers to make more […]

Key derivation is essential in many cryptographic applications, including key exchange, key management, secure communications, and building robust cryptographic primitives. But it’s also easy to get wrong: although standard tools exist for different key derivation needs, our audits often uncover improper uses of these tools that could compromise key security. Flickr’s API […]