A RISC Zero smart contract audit is a security review of code deployed to RISC Zero, carried out against the Chain-specific execution environment execution model and written in Rust (zkVM guest) — covering both the bug classes shared across Chain-specific runtime systems and the failure modes specific to RISC Zero.
A RISC Zero zkVM program proves that some code ran correctly. It does not prove that the code was the right code, that the inputs were legitimate, or that the verifier checked what it should — which is where the findings are.
zkVM applications shift the risk from the circuit to the boundary. The guest program is ordinary Rust, so ordinary Rust bugs apply; the interesting questions are what is committed to the journal, whether the verifier checks the image ID, and whether the on-chain verifier can be pointed at a different program.
We review the guest program logic, journal and commitment design, host/guest input trust, on-chain verifier integration and image ID handling, plus proof replay considerations.
RISC Zero runs on Chain-specific execution environment, so it inherits the bug classes below from every system in that family.
RISC Zero contracts are written in Rust (zkVM guest). See our Rust audit methodology.
We fix a commit hash, agree the in-scope contracts and read your architecture docs, then build a threat model: who the actors are, what the trust boundaries are, and which invariants must never break. Nothing is reviewed against assumptions we have not written down.
Line-by-line review by at least two auditors working independently, focused on authorisation, accounting, upgrade paths, external integrations and the gap between what the code does and what the documentation claims it does. Most critical findings come from this phase, not from tooling.
Static analysers appropriate to the language, plus property-based fuzzing and invariant testing to push the system into states no unit test covers. Tooling is used to widen coverage, never to replace the manual pass.
Candidate findings are proven on a forked network with a working proof of concept. We report what an attacker can actually do and what it costs them, not a theoretical severity label.
Every finding gets a severity rating, reproduction steps, the affected code, the impact in concrete terms and a specific remediation. You get a draft for discussion before anything is finalised.
We re-test every remediation against the original proof of concept and check that the fix has not opened a new path. The final report is yours to publish.
That a specific program ran on some input and produced the committed output. It says nothing about whether the input was legitimate or the program was the intended one — which is why image ID binding and journal design are where the findings are.
Yes, and it is usually the highest-value part: image ID checks, journal decoding, and replay protection.
Yes, plus the constraint that everything it trusts must be validated inside the proven execution rather than by the host.
A repository or contract address, a commit hash to freeze the scope, whatever architecture or spec documentation exists, and a point of contact who can answer design questions. If documentation is thin we will write our understanding of the system back to you and ask you to confirm it — that step alone catches design-level bugs.
A single token contract is 24–48 hours. A typical dApp or mid-sized protocol runs one to two weeks. Large DeFi systems, L2s, bridges and ZK circuits are scoped per project after we have seen the code. We will give you a fixed timeline with the quote, not an estimate that moves.
Yes. Fix review is part of the engagement, not an upsell. We re-run the original proof of concept against your patched code and confirm the fix has not introduced a new path.
Send the repository and a commit hash through the contact form, message @bugtester25 on Telegram, or book a 30-minute scoping call. 200+ protocols audited · $4B+ secured · 0 hacks post-audit. Prefer email? info@safeedges.in.