Denial of service

A denial of service prevents a system from performing its intended operations. In smart contract systems it usually takes the form of a state or dependency that makes a code path revert deterministically: an unfillable order occupying the only tracked order slot, an oracle configuration that stops price reads after a feed upgrade, or a validation gate an attacker can trigger at will.

The impact depends on the recovery path. If a permissioned function can clear the blockage, the damage is limited to downtime; if no on-chain recovery exists, funds can remain unrecoverable. The operations blocked and the recovery available determine a denial-of-service finding’s severity.