Optimism plans hard fork after security audits

The Optimism network, which operates on the Ethereum ecosystem, has taken a cautious step by reverting its permissionless fraud proof system to a permissioned state. The decision came after community audits identified security flaws.

The implementation of permissionless fraud proofs, also known as fault proofs, allowed any user to dispute potentially fraudulent or incorrect transactions on layer-2 networks. As such, it is an important step forward for decentralization in blockchain.

Initially activated on June 10, this mechanism was a milestone for the network. After all, it allowed Optimism to reach “Stage 1” of decentralization, as described by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. At this stage, layer-2 networks must have a functional fraud-proofing system, although a group of trusted parties can still intervene if critical bugs are identified.

However, just over two months after introducing this feature, Optimism decided to reactivate the permissioned system. This was because a vulnerability was identified during community audits.

Optimism returns to the permissioned system

According to an announcement from Optimism, the community has discovered two high-severity flaws. This prompted the decision to temporarily roll back the system in order to ensure network stability while the team implements fixes.

Optimism protocol engineer Mofi Taiwo explained in a proposal on the network’s governance forum that while no one has exploited these issues and user assets have never been at risk, the network has chosen to proceed with caution.

“We activated the permissioned fallback mechanism to prevent any potential instability while we patched the vulnerabilities,” Taiwo said. He also noted that Optimism’s monitoring tools were able to identify the issues, ensuring the network could react quickly before any damage was done.

Among the vulnerabilities discovered were contracts related to the fraud proofing system that had not been previously audited, since they fall into the reputational and liveness risk category. This means that their flaw would not put users’ funds at direct risk. However, reintroduction of the permissioned system was seen as necessary until all fixes were applied.

The upgrade, dubbed “Granite,” is set to take place on September 10 and will include a number of network adjustments, including a layer-2 hard fork. While the upgrade has not undergone a full audit, the OP Labs team has conducted a security review and classified the changes as low-risk.

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