A Methodology for Replicating Historical Exploits on EVM-Compatible Blockchains
Zhiyang Chen, Phillip Kemper, Yi Liu, Jan Gorzny, Diego Siqueira, Yuekang Li, Donato Pellegrino, Martin Derka · 2025
Replicating historical exploits on blockchain platforms is essential for testing emerging real-time defense mechanisms. However, existing tools primarily fork blockchain states and replay original exploit transactions rather than replicating these hacks in new blocks. This paper introduces a methodology for replicating exploit transactions across EVM-compatible blockchains, enabling testing of new security measures. By addressing key challenges in address mapping, contract deployment and storage configuration, our approach successfully replicates 18 security challenge exploit transactions and 12 real-world exploit transactions. This evaluation results confirm the methodology’s effectiveness in recreating both controlled challenges and real-world hacks, marking a significant advancement in smart contract security research and testing.