8 Best Smart Contract Auditors

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When you’re looking for a smart contract auditing company for your smart contracts, it can be tough to choose between the different smart contract auditing companies in the market.

After all, there are a lot of them out there!

That’s why I’ve put together this list of the best smart contract audit companies!

For each, I’ll give you an introduction to each company and its key features.

So, without further ado, let’s get started!

What is the Best Smart Contract Auditor?

The smart contract auditing industry is still relatively small, but a few stand out!

Smart contract auditors must be trustworthy and produce comprehensive audits, with a report for developers to work on.

Here are the best smart contract auditors:

1) Hashlock

Hashlock is a smart contract auditing firm from Australia that provides cutting-edge Blockchain Cybersecurity services.

They are an official member of Fintech Australia and Blockchain Australia.

Presently, Hashlock offers Smart Contract Security Auditing services. In the future, they hope to provide Blockchain Cyber Insurance via their Registered Partners.

Smart contract auditing done by Hashlock is based on a consistent rating system known as the Hashlock Rating System, which helps you evaluate the security and risk of your code.

Auditing Process:

Smart contract security audits by Hashlock follow a rigorous process of identifying creative and obscure vulnerabilities, exploits, and loopholes in protocol logic.

This is done so through a 5-step process:

1. Initial Consultation: Hashlock will engage you and learn more about your security needs and blockchain application.
2. Project Scoping: Hashlock receives and reviews the code, scoping the auditing services needed and providing you with a quote and timeline.
3. Preliminary Report: Hashlock will discover and collate vulnerabilities and their improvements and deliver them in a preliminary report.
4. Vulnerability Revisions: After you have revised your codebase based on recommendations, Hashlock will perform a re-audit to acknowledge their fixes and check for new vulnerabilities.
5. Final Audit Report: Hashlock will verify and give a “Secure” rating when all vulnerabilities are mitigated in a Final Audit Report, which can be made public by your choice.
6. Promotion and Verification: Hashlock can promote the audit on several platforms to establish that your code is secure.
7. Ongoing Support: Hashlock offers ongoing support in active security services such as on-chain monitoring, bug bounty management, upgradeable security, and more.

Hashlock Security Audit Methodology

Hashlock follows an audit methodology in every smart contract audit.

• Extensive Manual Code Review
• Vulnerability Analysis
• Offensive testing via industry-leading software toolkits
• First review suggesting development revisions
• Final analysis and report

Read their public reports of projects who have done smart contract audits with Hashlock to understand their audit methodology more.

What sets Hashlock apart from the rest is their dedication to ongoing support, which offers on-chain monitoring of your project, that many other companies don’t provide.

If you’re looking for a professional world-class team to provide your project with a smart contract audit, I recommend getting it done with Hashlock.

2) Hacken

Hacken is a blockchain security auditor founded in 2017 that offers a variety of services in the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry.

One of its core services is providing comprehensive smart contract audits.

Hacken has earned its place as one of the best smart contract audit companies out there, having conducted more than 1000 contracts for well-known products and companies.

These include:

• Binance
• Huobi Token
• 1INCH

Hacken can provide services for:

• Decentralized Exchanges
• DeFi Platforms
• NFT Marketplaces
• Crypto Wallets
• Gaming & Virtual Worlds

Hacken can provide smart contract auditing in both Solidity and Rust for 15 popular blockchains, including L2s such as Arbitrum, Optimism, or zkSync.

Key Features

Hacken’s smart contract auditing service boasts several distinguishing features that set it apart from the competition.

• Comprehensive Audits: Hacken conducts a thorough review of the smart contract’s code, ensuring its functionality aligns with the stated objectives and is free of any security vulnerabilities.
• Blockchain Versatility: Hacken’s familiarity with a wide array of blockchains, including L2s like Arbitrum, Optimism, or zkSync, enables it to provide auditing services regardless of the underlying blockchain technology.
• Industry Specialization: Its extensive experience auditing decentralized exchanges, DeFi platforms, NFT marketplaces, crypto wallets, and gaming & virtual worlds gives Hacken an edge in understanding the unique requirements and potential vulnerabilities of these sectors.
• Reputable Clientele: Hacken’s impressive portfolio, including giants like Binance and Huobi Token, attests to the quality and reliability of its auditing services.
• Multi-Language Support: Hacken is adept at auditing smart contracts written in both Solidity and Rust, demonstrating its versatile skill set and commitment to catering to a diverse projects.
• Done by Actual Humans: Hacken’s teams are real individuals. You can find their team members on LinkedIn/Twitter as well as meet them during industry events.
• Time-Efficient: Audit duration is agreed upon with the customer during the negotiation phase. They start the audit immediately after a client provides them with all required documentation. (3-10 days)

Auditing Process

1. Get a Quote
2. Audit Report
3. Remediation Check
4. Certification and promotion

You can learn more about their methodology on their site.

Bottom Line

In conclusion, Hacken stands out as one of the best smart contract audit companies in the blockchain industry.

With its comprehensive audits, blockchain versatility, industry specialization, reputable clientele, and multi-language support, it offers an unparalleled blend of expertise, experience, and versatility.

3) Trail of Bits

Trail of Bits is one of the well-known smart contract auditing companies many companies employ to perform smart contract auditing services.

They have been conducting smart contract audits since 2012 when it was founded.

What sets Trail of Bits apart is its team of expert developers who have experience working with Ethereum, Bitcoin, and other blockchain platforms. This means that they’re able to provide comprehensive audits that cover all aspects of your Ethereum smart contracts.

Another key feature of Trail of Bits is its use of cutting-edge technologies, which allows them to find vulnerabilities that other auditors might miss. They are the leaders in smart contract security assessments regarding the Solidity language, its compiler, and the Ethereum Virtual Machine.

They use several advanced testing tools for smart contracting auditing purposes, such as Manticore, Ethersplay, Slither, and Echidna to conduct their security assessments.

If you are looking for top-of-the-line smart contract auditing services, Trail of Bits is the best choice.

4) OpenZeppelin

OpenZeppelin is a popular open-source framework for writing smart contracts. It was founded in 2015 by two Ethereum core developers, and it’s used by some of the biggest companies in the world, such as Samsung, Dell, and Microsoft.

One of the best features of OpenZeppelin is its huge community of developers who are constantly improving the framework. This means that you can be confident that your smart contracts will be up-to-date with the latest best practices.

Another great feature of OpenZeppelin is its comprehensive security audits. They have a team of experienced auditors who will carefully examine your smart contract, the system architecture, and codebase to look for any potential vulnerabilities.

OpenZeppelin offers smart contract auditing services that are comprehensive to look for smart contract vulnerabilities.

At the end of the smart contract audit process, they will produce a report covering all actionable items for each issue they find.

They conduct smart contracts audits in several phases:

1. Contact: You specify an audit-ready code commit through the email below
2. Quote: You get a quote and timeline
3. Audit: OpenZeppelin starts the audit
4. Report: OpenZeppelin privately sends a report to your team
5. Fixes: Your team fixes the issues found
6. Publish: OpenZeppelin examines fixes, updates, and publishes the report (optional)

5) Cyfrin

This listing is sponsored by Cyfrin.

Cyfrin is a known web3 cybersecurity company that aims to bring blockchain security and education to its partners.

Their goal is to cultivate a safe environment that is reliable and transparent for their clients in the web3 space.

Some of their notable accomplishments are #1 Code4rena Auditor and their CEO, Patrick Collins, who is trusted by >50K subscribers and has >1.5M views on his YouTube channel, where he demonstrates and teaches his knowledge in smart contract development concepts.

At the moment, Cyfrin offers three types of blockchain cybersecurity services:

1. Smart Contract Audits
2. Code Reviews
3. Web3 Education

For this blog post, I’ll focus on their smart contract auditing service.

Auditing Process:

Going through their auditing service will see you through a 6-step auditing process:

1. Price & Timeline: Cyfrin’s Engineers will quote a price and timeline based on codebase complexity and size.
2. Lock commit hash, start date & downpayment: A start date is agreed on, and a commit hash is locked to base the audit. Downpayment is made
3. The audit begins: Cyfrin’s engineers will begin work on the audit while maintaining communication with you.
4. Initial Report: An initial report will be produced that categorizes issues as High, Medium, Low, or Informational. Your engineers can schedule a call with them to ask questions about it.
5. Mitigation: Your Engineers can begin work on the issues and recommendations given in the initial report.
6. Final Report: Mitigations will be checked by Cyfrin’s engineers and declare the issues on the report as “Acknowledged” or “Resolved”, while including any extra information.

What makes Cyfrin really special is their transparency to let you know the team members’ identities.

The Cyfrin team has some of the most stacked and recognized engineers in the blockchain space:

• Hans | #1 Ranked Auditor as of Writing on Code4rena
• Alex | Ex-Chainlink Labs Engineer in charge of $5B+ DeFi integrations
• 0Kage | Code4rena Top Finisher and Experienced FinTech Engineer
• Carlos | Code4rena Top Finisher & Expert Solidity Engineer
• Gio | Expert Solidity Engineer
• Patrick | CEO and YouTuber

Check out their public audit reports on GitHub.

If you’re looking to be in good hands with a trusted and tight team, look for Cyfrin for smart contract auditing services!

6) Consensys Diligence

ConsenSys is a blockchain security firm and software company that was founded in 2014. They offer a variety of services, including smart contract audits. ConsenSys is the company that created MetaMask, a crypto wallet for Defi, Web3 Dapps, and NFTs.

Their team of auditors is all experienced developers who have worked with Ethereum, Bitcoin, and other blockchain platforms. This means that they’re able to provide comprehensive audits that cover all aspects of your smart contracts.

ConsenSys is also unique in that they offer a “bug bounty” program. This means that if their auditors find a bug, you will be rewarded with a ConsenSys token.

This incentivizes their team to find as many bugs as possible so that they can evaluate your smart contracts well.

They audit smart contracts in four steps:

1. Assessment: ConsenSys Diligence will assess the logic of your smart contract and agree on the security properties to test.
2. Review: ConsenSys Diligence will perform multiple analysis processes in parallel on your code and conduct a review manually to look for any anomalies.
3. Delivery: ConsenSys Diligence will then deliver a full report with all the details of vulnerabilities, offer some guidance on mitigation, and provide some options for continuous verification.

If your focus is on Ethereum blockchain applications and software, then go with ConsenSys Diligence for your smart contracts, as they are the prominent blockchain auditors for it!

7) Runtime Verification

Runtime Verification is an American startup that was founded in 2010. It’s one of the most well-known and trusted smart contract audit companies in the industry.

Their mission is accessible trustworthy computing. They apply formal methods to improve the safety, reliability, and correctness of computing systems for the aerospace, automotive, and blockchain industries. They work with infrastructure builders to provide testing and verification services and tools.

In their comprehensive smart contract audits, they review your code line by line to check for any bugs, errors, security vulnerabilities, and exploits.

On top of this manual review, they utilize their bounded model checking tool, powered by the K-framework. It’s useful for its symbolic execution capability, which will augment and enhance your review.

Runtime Verification conducts its smart contract analysis in a 3-step process:

Meet & Greet

• You present your company, dive into your contract, and identify requirements.
• RV runs through available review and verification packages.
• RV introduces a typical engagement from start to finish.

Package Selection & Agreement

• You select the package that best meets your needs.
• RV provides an estimated timeline for the delivery of your engagement.
• We sign a contract, and you provide an initial deposit.

Engagement & Report

• RV reviews and/or verifies your code.
• RV drafts preliminary report and provides debrief on findings.
• You implement code improvements.
• RV delivers and publishes the final smart contract audit report (requires client approval).

If you’re looking for a longstanding trusted auditor for your smart contract, then Runtime Verification will be great for you!

8) CertiK

CertiK is one of the more renowned smart contract auditing companies by professors from Yale and Columbia University in 2018.

It’s one of the most well-funded startups in this space, having raised $33 million dollars in its Series A funding round.

It primarily provides smart contract audit services for blockchain security, primarily for smart contract codes for crypto projects.

CertiK is an official partner company of Binance. It also has prominent investors with the likes of Coinbase, Insight Partners, Goldman Sachs, and Sequoia.

CertiK uses Highly Accurate Formal Verification smart contract auditing services to mathematically prove that your smart contracts are bug-free and hacker-resistant.

They have a five-step verification process:

1. Share Source Code
2. Receive Quote
3. Begin Vulnerability Inspection
4. Suggest Remediations
5. Deliver Report

If you’re looking for comprehensive and mathematically rigorous verification of your smart contracts, then CertiK is the best option for you!

What are Smart Contract Audits?

A smart contract audit is a comprehensive review of smart contract code to identify any potential vulnerabilities. The smart contract auditing process is conducted by a team of experienced blockchain developers and security experts, typically from a smart contract auditing firm that is known in the blockchain technology industry.

What are Smart Contracts?

Smart Contracts are digital contracts that use code to execute the terms of an agreement between two parties on a decentralized blockchain network, eliminating the need for intermediaries and enabling trusted transactions among anonymous parties.

What is Smart Contract Auditing?

Smart contract auditing is the process of reviewing and verifying the code written for a smart contract. This audit includes checking the code for security issues, fix critical vulnerabilities, and potential bugs or malpractices.

It also involves making sure that the written code adheres to the specified requirements and behavior of the smart contract.

The goal of a smart contract security audit is to ensure that all parties involved in the smart contract administration are protected from any malicious intent or unforeseen circumstances.

It’s important to note that these audits should be performed by professional developers with experience in blockchain and smart contracts – as only they have the necessary knowledge to thoroughly review and test a smart contract’s code.

Overall, performing regular smart contract audits can help protect companies, individuals, and organizations from any unintended consequences caused by incorrect coding or bad practices within the underlying codebase.

A smart contract auditing company usually performs this audit as security services for any web3 company looking to correct bad code.

Why Are Smart Contract Security Audits Important?

Smart contract audits are important because they help to ensure the security and correctness of your code. A smart contract audit will help to identify any potential vulnerabilities in your code so that you can fix them before they are exploited. They provide peace of mind to you and your users.

What are the Benefits of a Smart Contract Audit?

The benefits of a smart contract audit include improved security, peace of mind, and increased trust from your users. Smart contract audit services by a smart contract audit company will help to identify any potential vulnerabilities in your code so that you can fix them before they are exploited.

What is the best smart contract auditor?

The best smart contract auditor is one that is experienced, has a good reputation, and uses high-quality tools and processes. Some of the best smart contract auditors include Runtime Verification, CertiK, OpenZeppelin, and Consensys Diligence.

Final Thoughts

There you have it! These are the best smart contract auditors. Be sure to do your own research as well and choose the best smart contract auditing firms for your smart contracts.

They each have their own strengths so it’s best to find out from themselves directly by contacting them and getting a quote before making a decision!

Smart contract development is simple, but it isn’t easy! Getting extensive blockchain security services for auditing smart contracts will help you out lots.

I hope you have found this post helpful in finding security audits from a blockchain security company of your choice. Thanks for reading!