# Internal — AI-Assisted Solana V3 Security Audit

## Engagement record

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Classification | Internal, AI-assisted; not an independent audit |
| Native scope | `repos/vaultfire-solana`, all 15 Anchor/Rust programs |
| Exact baseline | `fbedf828be39aaaf5d74aa6cb4085d783d28a683` |
| Isolated worktree | `/home/user/workspace/vaultfire-v3-audit-solana-v3` |
| Branch | `audit/solana-v3-20260821` |
| Network/deployment conclusion | No deployment, signing, push, production change, or mainnet claim was made |
| Evidence source | Native source, account constraints, Cargo/Anchor manifests, checked-in tests, and source-only readiness files |

This review is adversarial and source-led. It is not a substitute for an
independent human audit before any uncapped mainnet value is accepted. The
release state is deliberately blocked in
[`V3_SECURITY_RELEASE.json`](./V3_SECURITY_RELEASE.json).

## Scope and method

Every instruction and account definition in all fifteen native programs was
reviewed for signer/authority controls, PDA uniqueness and domain separation,
Anchor type/owner validation, initialization/reinitialization/close behavior,
lamport solvency, CPI and arbitrary-account substitution, replay/expiry,
integer handling, bounded strings/account space, governance threshold
independence, and bridge/attestation trust. Native code does not process SPL
tokens or x402 settlement; those boundaries were therefore reviewed as absent
native controls rather than assumed from README/API metadata.

The economic lifecycle comparison was adapted to Solana rather than mechanically
copied from EVM:

1. **Partner bond:** creation must bind two distinct signers, one canonical PDA,
   and a state relation; dissolution must be participant-authorized.
2. **Accountability stake:** a bond needs a program-owned, rent-preserving
   lamport vault; stake, slash, and withdrawal must have explicit state
   transitions and checked accounting.
3. **Governance:** signer weight must be independent, proposals must be
   state-bound and expiring, and an approval record must not silently become an
   arbitrary CPI dispatcher.
4. **Bridge/attestation:** an authority signature does not prove a remote event
   or ML-DSA signature. Without a reviewed verifier, source domain, and replay
   rule, the only safe V3 behavior is rejection.

## Findings register

### SV3-01 — Critical — permissionless singleton bootstrap could permanently capture protocol authority

**Affected symbols:** every `initialize` entrypoint in
`programs/*/src/lib.rs`, with the fail-closed guard at:
`ai_accountability_bonds:14`, `ai_partnership_bonds:11`,
`anti_surveillance:11`, `belief_attestation_verifier:11`,
`dilithium_attestor:13`, `flourishing_metrics_oracle:11`,
`identity_registry:11`, `mission_enforcement:11`,
`multisig_governance:19`, `privacy_guarantees:11`,
`production_belief_verifier:14`, `reputation_registry:11`,
`trust_data_bridge:11`, `validation_registry:11`, and
`vaultfire_adapter:11`.

**Exploit path:** before an authorized operator initializes a fixed singleton
PDA, any signer could invoke `initialize`, pay rent, and set themselves as the
stored authority. The attacker then controls policy updates, metric submission,
validation/reputation updates, bond slashing, bridge message admission, or
governance configuration for that program. A hard-coded replacement authority
would have been invented and was not source-backed.

**Remediation:** all 15 bootstrap handlers now return
`BootstrapDisabled` before writing state. This fail-closed V3 branch cannot
initialize until a partner supplies an independently reviewed,
source-backed authority/custody design. No program ID or authority was invented.

**Regression:** `tests/security-regression.test.mjs`, “all global bootstraps
fail closed,” checks every native program. `V3_SECURITY_RELEASE.json` remains
`blocked`.

### SV3-02 — High — accountability vault was an unchecked/system-owned PDA and withdrawal could strand stake

**Affected baseline symbols:** `ai_accountability_bonds::StakeBond::bond_vault`
and `WithdrawBond::bond_vault`; hardened code at
`programs/ai_accountability_bonds/src/lib.rs:23-113` and `:133-205`.

**Exploit path:** the baseline accepted an `UncheckedAccount` vault, sent SOL
to it, then directly mutated lamports on withdrawal. A system-owned recipient
cannot safely be debited by this program; the path could fail or violate
rent/ownership assumptions. The bond did not bind its vault or state, and
unchecked arithmetic could desynchronize liabilities.

**Remediation:** the vault is now `Account<BondVault>` created by the program
at its agent-bound PDA. The bond stores both vault and state keys; withdrawals
verify both, preserve the rent reserve, and use checked subtraction/addition.
Slashing now rejects until a separately reviewed adjudication, dispute, and
slash-recipient settlement design exists; it no longer lets one stored
authority freeze funds under an undefined economic outcome.

**Regression:** the “accountability bonds” test asserts initialized typed vault,
PDA binding, rent reserve, checked arithmetic, no `UncheckedAccount`, and the
fail-closed slashing error.

### SV3-03 — High — unilateral and duplicate partnership bonds could forge relationship claims

**Affected baseline symbol:** `ai_partnership_bonds::create_bond`; hardened
code at `programs/ai_partnership_bonds/src/lib.rs:17-46` and `:90-128`.

**Exploit path:** agent A could register any `agent_b` public key without
agent B’s signature. The reverse order also produced a distinct PDA, allowing
two active records for the same relationship. Consumers could treat either as a
mutual partnership.

**Remediation:** both participants must now be signers, self-bonds fail, public
keys must be in canonical order, and the bond PDA includes the singleton state
plus both participant keys. The bond stores and validates the originating
state.

**Regression:** the “partnership bonds” test asserts both signers, canonical
ordering, state-domain seed, and state relation.

### SV3-04 — High — governance threshold could be bypassed and approvals had no bounded semantics

**Affected baseline symbols:** `multisig_governance::initialize`,
`create_proposal`, `sign_proposal`, and `execute_proposal`; hardened code at
`programs/multisig_governance/src/lib.rs:13-145` and `:163-289`.

**Exploit path:** duplicate public keys in the signer vector made a nominal
threshold appear to have multiple independent voters. Proposals were not
PDA-bound to their multisig state, never expired, and any executor could mark a
proposal executed. The baseline “execution” had no governed action but its
name invited unsafe downstream interpretation.

**Remediation:** duplicate signers are rejected; proposal PDAs and stored
`multisig` bind approvals to the state; creation sets a maximum 30-day expiry;
signing/finalization rejects expiration; finalizer must be a registered signer.
`execute_proposal` was replaced by `finalize_proposal`, explicitly an
off-chain approval record with no CPI dispatcher.

**Regression:** the governance regression test checks duplicate rejection,
expiry, PDA/state binding, signer-only finalization, removal of
`execute_proposal`, and absence of `invoke`/`invoke_signed`.

### SV3-05 — Critical — bridge accepted unauthenticated, replayable trust data

**Affected baseline symbols:** `trust_data_bridge::submit_bridge_message` and
`mark_processed`; hardened code at
`programs/trust_data_bridge/src/lib.rs:17-35`.

**Exploit path:** the configured authority could create arbitrary messages with
arbitrary source chain/address/payload. There was no source-domain allowlist,
remote-event proof, attester binding, nonce/message identifier, expiry, or
payload verification. The counter-based PDA allowed replay records. A
downstream consumer could mistake authority-entered data for bridged trust.

**Remediation:** both submission and processing now atomically return
`AttestationVerificationUnavailable`. The program is not a bridge until a
separate reviewed proof, replay, source-domain, and governance design exists.

**Regression:** the bridge/ML-DSA regression test asserts rejection and absence
of message payload persistence.

### SV3-06 — Critical — ML-DSA/Dilithium handler stored unverified bytes as an attestation

**Affected baseline symbol:** `dilithium_attestor::submit_attestation`;
hardened code at `programs/dilithium_attestor/src/lib.rs:19-30`.

**Exploit path:** any signer could provide arbitrary `signature_bytes` and a
hash; the program only bounded byte length and stored the record. No public key,
message binding, ML-DSA verification, nonce, or domain separation existed. The
record/event could be interpreted as a quantum-resistant proof.

**Remediation:** V3 returns `VerificationUnavailable` atomically. It does not
store a record until a Solana-compatible ML-DSA verifier and verification test
vectors are independently reviewed.

**Regression:** the bridge/ML-DSA regression test asserts the fail-closed error
and absence of signature persistence.

### SV3-07 — Medium — unchecked counters and versions could panic or corrupt lifecycle accounting

**Affected symbols:** increment/decrement paths across all 15 `lib.rs` files:
`ai_accountability_bonds:50,54,85,94,101`;
`ai_partnership_bonds:44,64`; `anti_surveillance:28`;
`belief_attestation_verifier:40`; `flourishing_metrics_oracle:40,65`;
`identity_registry:38,75`; `mission_enforcement:33`;
`multisig_governance:51,65`; `privacy_guarantees:29,48`;
`production_belief_verifier:56,60`; `reputation_registry:30`;
`validation_registry:36`; and `vaultfire_adapter:43`.
`dilithium_attestor` and `trust_data_bridge` no longer mutate their previously
unsafe counters because their attestation/message operations fail closed.

**Exploit path:** a counter at its numeric limit could overflow. Saturating
decrements in relationship/identity lifecycle code could hide an impossible
state instead of surfacing it. On Solana, a failed transaction reverts, but
unchecked logic can still make a high-volume state transition permanently
unusable at the boundary.

**Remediation:** direct increment/decrement and saturating lifecycle
decrement operations were replaced with checked operations and explicit custom
errors. Release profile overflow checks remain enabled.

**Regression:** the first source regression test scans all fifteen native
programs for `+=`, `-=`, and the test suite validates the checked patterns in
critical economic paths.

## Verified control observations

| Area | Review conclusion |
| --- | --- |
| Account ownership/type | Anchor `Account<T>` validates the owner/discriminator for typed accounts. The previous unchecked vault was removed. |
| PDA namespace | Static seeds are program-ID scoped. Economic/governance records now include their state domain where a relationship existed. |
| CPI | The native source contains no arbitrary CPI, token CPI, `remaining_accounts`, or external-program account flow. Governance finalization intentionally has no CPI. |
| Close/reinit | No `init_if_needed` or `close` constraints were found. Fixed singleton PDAs preclude normal reinit; all bootstraps are now disabled. |
| Tokens/stake | Native stake is SOL/lamports only. No SPL token account, mint, token-program, arbitrary token, or stake-program flow was found. |
| x402 | No native x402 proof or double-use control exists. Website metadata remains explicitly `configured_unverified`; it is not accepted as a settlement proof. |
| Guardian/pause/timelock | No operational guardian, timelock, or rollback executor exists in native code. The bootstrap block prevents live use but is not an operational remedy. |
| V2/V3 compatibility | Bond and governance account/IDL changes are intentionally breaking. No migration is implemented; source is blocked from deployment until a migration and release plan is reviewed. |

## Residual risks and release blockers

1. The hard bootstrap block intentionally makes every program non-operational.
   A partner must provide an approved threshold authority/custody design,
   migration decision, and on-chain verification plan before enabling anything.
2. There is no human-independent execution, guardian/pause, timelock, dispute,
   adjudication, or appeal mechanism. These are product/security design gaps,
   not satisfied by the historical EVM implementation.
3. A future bridge needs attester set independence, proof verification,
   canonical remote-domain rules, event/message ID uniqueness, expiry,
   reorg/finality handling, and consumers that bind to exactly one verified
   message. A future ML-DSA path needs verified keys, message/domain binding,
   deterministic test vectors, and compute/size review.
4. Several authority-only update handlers still accept unseeded typed records
   (for example, metric/reputation/validation/profile updates). They are not
   exploitable before bootstrap because all programs are disabled, but a future
   activation design should bind each mutable child record to its state and
   declared subject in account constraints.
5. Variable-length user strings used as PDA seeds in several legacy
   instructions can exceed Solana’s per-seed bound; these fail the caller’s
   transaction rather than mutate state. A future enabled version should use a
   reviewed, length-delimited hash commitment for variable seed material.
6. Native Cargo/Anchor/Solana compilation and execution were unavailable in
   this environment. Source tests pass, but the SBF build, IDL generation,
   local-validator tests, program size, compute budget, reproducibility, and
   Rust dependency security checks remain release gates.

## Validation record

| Check | Result |
| --- | --- |
| `npm run test:readiness` | Passed: 13 tests |
| JSON parse and `git diff --check` | Passed |
| Native Rust brace/guard/source scan | Passed for all 15 programs |
| `cargo fmt --check`, `cargo clippy`, `cargo test`, `cargo build-sbf` | Unavailable: Cargo/Rust toolchain absent |
| `anchor build`, `anchor test`, local validator | Unavailable: Anchor/Solana tools absent |
| `cargo-audit`, `cargo-deny`, `cargo-geiger`, Semgrep | Unavailable |
| Package Prettier lint | Unavailable: `prettier` dependency is not installed |
| Program size/reproducible deployed-bytecode comparison | Unavailable and not applicable to this non-deployed source-only branch |

## Readiness verdict

**NOT READY — BLOCKED.** The V3 source is intentionally fail-closed and cannot
bootstrap. It must not accept value, represent bridge/ML-DSA claims, process
x402 settlement, or be deployed until all release gates are independently
reviewed and evidenced. This internal AI-assisted review does not replace an
independent human audit before uncapped mainnet value.
