Fujitsu Touts New Tech to Detect Ethereum Smart Contract Bugs

Japanese IT giant Fujitsu has revealed a new technology that it says could help to mitigate problems with ethereum's smart contracts.

In a statement released Wednesday, Fujitsu said the new system aims to detect in advance the risks associated with a smart contract source code on ethereum. In effect, the tech helps the blockchain authenticate the source call that triggers smart contract transactions.

Smart contracts are a primary feature differentiating ethereum from bitcoin, enabling developers to build applications on top of the ethereum blockchain to automatically execute programming orders (or contracts).

However, Fujitsu said that, currently, there are six common risks associated with the platform. While existing technologies are capable of solving most of those issues, the authenticity of the source call still remains problematic.

For instance, as the firm explained, since multiple smart contracts could have been built indirectly into a blockchain, there's a risk that the system may not correctly execute the original intention of a source call.

To that end, the new system, a result from joint efforts by Fujitsu's laboratory and its R&D center, is claimed to alert developers of any source code vulnerability that could be exploited to abuse the language of ethereum, and which could ultimately "fake the origin of a transaction."

In addition, the two divisions also tout the new technology as being able to pinpoint the code location of such bugs.

In other news, Fujitsu said it will also extend its blockchain research and development efforts to help commercialize Hyperledger Fabric, a blockchain framework developed by the blockchain consortium of which Fujitsu is member. That project is slated for completion later in 2018.

Fujitsu image via Shutterstock