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SoK: What Don't We Know? Understanding Security Vulnerabilities in SNARKs (Chaliasos, Ernstberger, Theodore, Wong, Jahanara, Livshits 2024)¶
Last modified: 2026-10-27
Summary¶
Systematizes 141 real-world vulnerabilities in SNARK implementations and builds a taxonomy by layer (circuit, front end, back end, integration) and root cause. Under-constrained circuits are the most common class, followed by Fiat-Shamir and backend bugs (USENIX Security 2024). Essential reading for anyone deploying circuit-based credential proofs, and cited in BL26-SoK-AnonCreds as evidence of the security risks of general-purpose ZKPs.
Related resources¶
- Compositional Formal Verification of Zero-Knowledge Circuits (Coglio, McCarthy, Smith, Chin, Gaddamadugu, Dellepere 2023) (paper, 2023)
- Do You Need a Zero Knowledge Proof? (Ernstberger, Chaliasos, Zhou, Jovanovic, Gervais 2024) (paper, 2024)
- Formalizing Soundness Proofs of SNARKs (Bailey, Miller 2023) (paper, 2023)
- SoK: Understanding zk-SNARKs: The Gap Between Research and Practice (Liang et al. 2025) (paper, 2025)
- The Last Challenge Attack: Exploiting a Vulnerable Implementation of the Fiat-Shamir Transform in a KZG-based SNARK (Ciobotaru, Peter, Velichkov 2024) (paper, 2024)