Protocol Definitions
Decrypted terminology for the NFTPD ecosystem. Identify, learn, and master the language of Web3 security.
Formal Verification
The act of proving or disproving the correctness of intended algorithms underlying a system with respect to a certain formal specification or property.
Societal Consensus Protocol
A multi-layered agreement mechanism that integrates technical consensus with human governance frameworks.
SOC2 Type II Blockchain Compliance
A rigorous auditing procedure that ensures service providers manage data securely to protect the interests of their organization and the privacy of their clients.
Multi-Party Computation (MPC)
A subfield of cryptography that allows multiple parties to jointly compute a function over their inputs while keeping those inputs private.
Zero-Knowledge Rollup (ZK-Rollup)
A layer 2 scaling solution that offloads transactions from the main blockchain while maintaining security through zero-knowledge proofs.
Oracle Manipulation Defense
Tactical countermeasures designed to protect DeFi protocols from price feed exploits.
Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT)
The property of a system that is able to reach consensus even if some of its components are failing or acting maliciously.
Smart Contract Audit
A thorough clinical examination of code to identify vulnerabilities and ensure logic alignment with specifications.
WalterWallets
Next-generation Token Bound Accounts (ERC-6551) acting as programmable digital vaults.
Airdrop Security
Protocols for safely distributing tokens to prevent sybil attacks and phishing exploits.
Anti-Phishing
Technical and educational countermeasures against fraudulent attempts to obtain sensitive information.
Asset Recovery
The methodical process of tracing and retrieving stolen or lost digital assets.
Audit Standards
The rigorous frameworks and methodologies used to evaluate the security of decentralised protocols.
Blockchain Forensics
The scientific study of on-chain data to investigate criminal activity and map financial flows.
Bridge Security
Defensive architectures for protecting assets as they move between independent blockchain networks.
Bug Bounty
Incentive programs that reward ethical hackers for discovering and responsibly disclosing vulnerabilities.
Cold Storage
The practice of keeping digital assets in offline environments to eliminate remote hacking risks.
Compliance Audit
A formal review to ensure adherence to regulatory requirements and internal policy frameworks.
Consensus Security
Defenses against attacks targeting the agreement mechanisms of a blockchain network.
DDoS Mitigation
Strategies for preventing Distributed Denial of Service attacks from disrupting network availability.
DeFi Safety
The comprehensive set of standards and practices for reducing risk in decentralized financial protocols.
DEX Security
Protection mechanisms for Decentralized Exchanges against sandwich attacks, flash loans, and pool manipulation.
Digital Identity
Self-sovereign systems for managing personal information and credentials on the blockchain.
Encryption Protocols
Mathematical standards used to secure data transmission and storage in a digital environment.
Entropy Management
The critical process of ensuring true randomness in the generation of cryptographic keys.
ERC-20 Auditing
Specialized security review for fungible token contracts to prevent supply manipulation and lockups.
Exploit Defense
Proactive and reactive measures to protect against software vulnerabilities and malicious code.
Flash Loan Defense
Techniques for preventing attackers from utilizing uncollateralized loans to manipulate protocol logic.
Forensic Analysis
The detailed investigation of security incidents to understand the root cause and impact.
Front-Running Mitigation
Countermeasures against actors who use advanced knowledge of pending transactions to profit from price movements.
Full Node Security
Hardening the infrastructure responsible for validating and propagating transactions across a network.
Gas Limit Safety
Strategic management of transaction resource limits to prevent out-of-gas errors and resource exhaustion exploits.
Governance Attacks
Malicious attempts to subvert the decision-making processes of a DAO or protocol.
Ghost Assets
Digital tokens that appear to have value but lack underlying liquidity or functional utility.
Graph Analysis
The use of mathematical graph theory to map and analyze complex relationships in on-chain data.
Hardware Wallets
Physical devices designed to store private keys in an isolated, secure environment.
Hash Integrity
The verification that a piece of data has not been altered, confirmed by its cryptographic hash.
Honey Pots
Decoy systems or contracts designed to attract and identify malicious actors.
Hot Wallet Risk
The inherent security vulnerabilities associated with keeping private keys on internet-connected devices.
Incident Response
The structured approach for managing the aftermath of a security breach or technical failure.
Infiltration Testing
The proactive simulation of attacks to identify weaknesses in a protocol's architecture or governance.
Insurance Protocols
Decentralized systems for mitigating financial loss in the event of smart contract exploits or custodian failure.
IPFS Security
Best practices for ensuring the availability and integrity of data stored on the InterPlanetary File System.
Key Management
The comprehensive lifecycle management of cryptographic keys, from generation to rotation and destruction.
KYC Verification
The process of identifying and verifying the identity of users to ensure regulatory compliance.
Know Your Transaction
Real-time monitoring and screening of on-chain transactions to identify and block high-risk financial flows.
Keystroke Defense
Protections against malware designed to capture private keys or seed phrases during user input.
Layer 2 Security
The specific defensive measures required for scaling solutions that operate on top of a base blockchain.
Ledger Integrity
The property of a blockchain that ensures the history of transactions is accurate and practically unchangeable.
Liquidity Protection
Safeguards designed to prevent sudden, catastrophic drains of assets from decentralized exchange pools.
Live Monitoring
Continuous, real-time surveillance of on-chain activity to detect and respond to security threats immediately.
Malware Analysis
The process of dissecting and understanding the behavior of malicious software targeting Web3 environments.
MeV Protection
Countermeasures against Maximal Extractable Value extraction by validators and searchers.
Multi-Sig Setup
Security configurations requiring multiple independent approvals to authorize high-value transactions.
Mnemonic Security
The defensive protocols for generating, storing, and utilizing seed phrases.
Network Hardening
The multi-layered process of securing the physical and virtual infrastructure of a blockchain node.
NFT Verification
Cryptographic proof that an NFT is authentic and originated from the claimed creator or collection.
Node Integrity
Ensuring that a blockchain node is running un-tampered software and correctly validating ledger state.
Non-Custodial Safety
Best practices for users who maintain full control over their private keys and digital assets.
Oracle Security
Protocols for ensuring the accuracy and resilience of external data feeds into smart contracts.
On-Chain Forensics
The real-time and retrospective analysis of ledger data to map flow of funds and identify entities.
Open Source Audit
Publicly verifiable security reviews of open-source codebase to ensure transparency and community trust.
Operating Security
The broader set of organizational (OpSec) practices designed to protect against social engineering and internal threats.
Private Key Safety
The absolute requirement to protect the cryptographic secret that controls a blockchain address.
Phishing Prevention
Tools and education designed to help users identify and avoid fraudulent sites and messages.
Protocol Audits
Deep technical reviews of a protocol's entire architecture, including smart contracts, front-end, and cross-chain logic.
Proof of Reserves
A cryptographic method for centralized and decentralized entities to prove they hold the assets they claim.
Re-entrancy Defense
Programming patterns designed to prevent a common smart contract exploit where a function is called repeatedly before the first execution is finished.
Reactive Security
Automated systems that detect and respond to security incidents literally as they are occurring.
Risk Assessment
The methodical identification and quantification of technical, economic, and legal risks in a blockchain project.
Rug Pull Prevention
Protocols and analysis tools designed to identify and avoid fraudulent projects where developers intend to drain liquidity.
Sidechain Security
The unique security considerations for independent blockchains that run parallel to a main chain.
Seed Phrase Safety
Maximum-security protocols for protecting the human-readable representation of a private key.
Sybil Resistance
The property of a system to resist attacks where a single entity creates multiple fake identities to gain control.
TBA Security
Defensive architecture for Token Bound Accounts (ERC-6551) to prevent unauthorized execution by sub-addresses.
Tokenomics Audit
Economic analysis of a token's supply, demand, and incentive structures to ensure long-term sustainability.
Transaction Verification
The process of confirming that a transaction is technically valid and authorized by the correct parties.
Threat Intelligence
The proactive gathering and sharing of information about emerging attack vectors and malicious actors.
Validator Security
Maximal protection for the infrastructure responsible for block production and consensus participation.
Vulnerability Scan
Automated testing of codebase and infrastructure to identify known security weaknesses.
Vault Technology
Advanced smart contract architectures designed for the long-term, secure storage of digital assets.
VRF Security
Ensuring the integrity and unpredictability of Verifiable Random Functions used in on-chain logic.
Web3 Firewall
Infrastructure-level protection that screens incoming RPC calls and smart contract interactions for malicious patterns.
Wallet Hygiene
The daily practices and habits that minimize the risk of address compromise and asset loss.
White-Hat Hacking
Ethical security research performed with the intention of uncovering vulnerabilities and helping projects fix them.
Whale Tracking
The analysis of large-scale asset movements to identify market trends and institutional sentiment.
Zero-Knowledge Proofs
A cryptographic method by which one party can prove to another that they know a value, without conveying any information apart from the fact that they know that value.
Zero-Day Defense
Protocols for protecting against vulnerabilities that are exploited before developers are aware of them.
ZK-Rollup Security
The cryptographic guarantees and implementation details that ensure the safety of Layer 2 ZK scaling solutions.
Zone Isolation
Architectural strategies for compartmentalizing protocol components to prevent "lateral movement" during an exploit.
Account Abstraction (ERC-4337)
The process of making blockchain accounts more programmable by moving away from EOAs to smart contract wallets.
Diamond Standard (ERC-2535)
A multi-facet proxy pattern that solves the 24KB contract size limit and enables modular upgradeability.
UUPS (Universal Upgradeable Proxy Standard)
An upgradeable proxy pattern where logic resides in the implementation contract, reducing gas costs and improving security.
UserOperation (UserOp)
A pseudo-transaction structure used in ERC-4337 that describes an action to be taken on behalf of a user.
Paymaster
A smart contract in ERC-4337 that can sponsor gas fees for users or allow them to pay in ERC-20 tokens.
Bundler
A specialized node that packages UserOperations from an alternative mempool into standard Ethereum transactions.
EntryPoint Contract
The singleton gateway contract in ERC-4337 that manages the validation and execution of UserOperations.
MEV-Boost
A middleware that allows validators to access a competitive market for building blocks with maximal extractable value.
TEMPEST
A technical specification for limiting electromagnetic emanations from electronic equipment to prevent eavesdropping.
Faraday Cage
An enclosure used to block electromagnetic fields, critical for physical security in high-stakes signing environments.
JIT Liquidity
Just-In-Time liquidity; an MEV strategy where an attacker adds and removes liquidity in a single block to capture fees from a specific trade.
Sandwich Attack
A front-running strategy where an attacker places orders before and after a user's transaction to profit from price slippage.