Ethereum delays Glamsterdam test after security devs flag risk to existing contracts

Ethereum developers have postponed the Glamsterdam upgrade due to concerns raised by security researchers about potential risks to existing smart contracts. The upgrade, initially scheduled for October 26, was put on hold during a recent All Core Devs Execution meeting. The issue lies with EIP-8037, which proposes a change to Ethereum's gas accounting system.

This change could affect how contracts handle failed transactions, potentially allowing errors to become permanent. The research, published by security firm ChainSecurity, suggests that the proposed changes, combined with EIP-8038, could alter how contracts respond when another contract runs out of gas. Some contracts are designed to handle failed operations and continue processing, recording the failure or moving to another step.

However, under the proposed rules, gas used to create certain records could be restored when those changes are undone, potentially enabling contracts to complete a failure-handling operation that would otherwise reverse. There is also a risk that creating a new storage slot could require significantly more gas when an allowance is exhausted, causing a contract using an existing gas budget to fail while carrying out a valid operation.

Despite these concerns, there is no evidence that existing contracts are currently being exploited through these proposed changes.