Ongoing Code Review - a smart and thrifty long-term solution to security audits and hacks during Crypto Winter

The bear market and the fall of FTX underscores that this is the most challenging time for blockchain startups. The liquidity and funding crisis, a decline in investor interest and confidence in digital assets, and massive cyber-attacks have all become significant headaches for crypto companies. On the one hand, some of these reasons are outside the founders’ control and lie in better regulation and rules. On the other hand, there are things that can be done to ensure the security of a startup’s code and internal operations to reduce the likelihood of cyber attacks.

The most effective way to safeguard your blockchain startup and clients from hacker threats is to do an audit. Many entrepreneurs overlook this critical project expense and get targeted by cybercriminals. The most recent example is the pNetwork bridge attack, which enabled hackers to create 55 billion GALA tokens. As a result, the token lost 95% of its market cap, and the asset was delisted from the most important exchanges and lost investors’ trust.

This case demonstrates that blockchain projects must undergo a thorough audit at all phases of development. Discovering faults, particularly early in product development process, is more efficient and very necessary. But proper security audits can be expensive, and founders sometimes opt to take risks and decline the necessity of code audits. Vidma understands this oversight and created a service that can help ensure a security assessment while helping to cut expenses of audits and conserve cashflow needed to survive during the Crypto winter.

Ongoing Code Review is Vidma’s unique new service for blockchain startups and projects at the earlier MVP and development stages. The service uses our own pool request model that provides projects with significant budget savings through long-term cooperation with Vidma to review code. The client company purchases a package for verifying a specified number of lines of code and receives an auditor who only works with them for an extended time.

The auditor thoroughly examines the product code and any subsequent updates. Because the Vidma auditor will only verify new contracts and lines of code in the repository, the client’s audit service fees are significantly reduced after the first initial code review.

In addition to financial rewards, long cooperation with one auditor increases service quality and efficiency because the same audit specialist delves into the project’s business processes and the product’s capabilities and analyzes the code for compliance with the business logic.

Benefits of Ongoing Code Review:

• Cost savings through long-term cooperation.
• Checking the code during the whole development stage.
• Personal auditor who is available at any time and for any duration you need.
• A full report after each commit/changes made.
• Savings as comments are not charged and are not considered as a line of code (except for additions and deletions of code lines).
• The auditor learns about the company’s business processes (logic, communication, and experience), which increases the audit’s quality.

There are four Ongoing Code Review packages available to clients. The price depends on the number of lines of code that go in the package:

• Small — the package includes a personal auditor and verification of 500 lines of code for $8.5/line;
• Medium — the package includes a personal auditor and verification of 1000 lines of code for $7.5/line;
• Large — the package includes a personal auditor and verification of 1500 lines of code for $6.5/line;
• X-large — the package includes a personal auditor and verification of 2000 lines of code for $6/line.
  
  

Ongoing Code Review is not a full-fledged audit because the activities of an expert do not involve testing and certification of the verified code. But it can considerably help the speed, efficiency, and cost of the proper security audit. The number of issues identified in the Audit Report is reduced as they are caught and corrected early. Your brand is not impacted by a low audit score and outstanding issues. Customers who employ the Vidma Security Audit service following Ongoing Code Review also receive a 10%-15% discount. We explained the standard Vidma Security Audit service here.

Ongoing Code Review is one of the most affordable services for blockchain startups for protection against product and customer issues and hacks, especially during the Crypto Winter. A project receives an auditor who can assist at any time and checks the product code during the development stage. This is an outstanding alternative for blockchain entrepreneurs looking to develop and improve their products and protect their tokens throughout the crypto winter to be ready for the spring..