Decentralized Finance Security Requires Continuous Resilient Defense
Smart contracts are the backbone of decentralized finance (DeFi), but their vulnerabilities can lead to catastrophic losses for users and protocols alike. To mitigate this risk, security professionals and blockchain developers recommend a range of due diligence strategies.
The first step is to treat smart contract risk as two separate questions: is the code likely to behave as written, and is the system around it safe enough that the code does not matter in isolation?
One expert emphasizes the importance of continuous resilient defense, which involves treating a smart contract audit as a permanent safety seal. Instead, security professionals recommend pursuing ongoing operational lifecycle security, including automated static analysis in the CI/CD pipeline and manual code inspection.
Another key strategy is to assess code and context together, examining not just the technical aspects of the contract but also the permissions and incentives around it. This includes looking at recent independent audits, fixing merged issues, and reviewing who controls admin keys and oracles.