Not too long ago, solo audits didn’t exist as a concept within our industry. There was no easy way for an auditor to prove their skill, so they didn’t have the tangible evidence needed to convince a third party to employ their skills.
All of this changed when the Code4rena competitive audit model took off. Now, it’s all changing again (for the better) with Code4rena Profiles.
Code4rena as a launchpad
With our competitive audit model, Code4rena created an environment that fosters healthy competition, which in turn gave auditors the opportunity to shine as individuals. This style of audit provides auditors with a stage to demonstrate their proficiency in identifying vulnerabilities, effectively solving challenges, and delivering high-quality results. The associated recognition and validation has laid the foundation for auditors to venture into solo audits.
Pioneering solo audits
PashovKrum: it’s a name that’s sure to ring a bell if you’ve spent any time digging into the web3 security industry. Pashov is one of the best examples of someone who proved their skills via Code4rena competitive audits, then established themselves as a solo auditor.
In June 2022, Pashov received his first award from a Code4rena audit which placed him in the top 400 of the all-time leaderboard. From there, he continued to rank highly in competitive audits, making a name for himself as a top Warden. By February 2023, he was regularly conducting private audits, earning over $40k that month alone. Now, he’s one of the most frequently booked solo auditors in the space.
In his own words, Pashov attributes his successful start in auditing to Code4rena.
What makes this whole story even better is that his is just one of many examples of how participating in Code4rena competitive audits has given rise to a fruitful solo auditing career.
Benefits of a combined audit approach
So why are we, Code4rena, as a competitive audit platform, talking about solo audits? Isn’t that a little counterintuitive? Actually, no — a multi-pronged security approach is always preferable, whether that’s made up of a mix of competitive audits, solo audits, traditional audits, bounties, or whatever it may be. When it comes down to it, the more eyes on the code, the better.
The combination of a competitive audit and a solo audit has a huge amount of value for the project looking to be secured. Where competitive audits provide access to hundreds of expert minds, solo audits provide access to expert consultative advice and individualized focus.
No single auditor can compete with the value delivered by a hundred, but solo audits and security consultants unquestionably provide a unique and highly efficient value to projects for a variety of reasons:
- deeper dives on specific pieces of code that would benefit from niche expertise
- efficiently gathering low-hanging issues and standout bugs in order to get the most value in an open competitive audit
- providing a consultative review of early-phase concepts or architecture
- getting multiple solo audits in order to gain diverse opinions and perspectives
Solos and competitive audits work perfectly together to ensure that once you’ve reached a competitive audit, your codebase is well-positioned for wardens to focus on finding more challenging, unique bugs or avoiding scenarios where you have to go back to the drawing board to rearchitect late in the game.
Code4rena ❤ solo auditors
To quote Primary Sock directly, “Our favorite thing is seeing all the cool opportunities people who’ve come through C4 have gotten and the stuff they’ve done. I don’t see that as a failure of C4, but rather a success.”
Code4rena helped seed a huge field of solo auditors which is now flourishing, and we’re excited to get to help more wardens on this phase of their journey.
Our main goal at Code4rena has been, and will always be, to empower the community of skilled security researchers and smart contract experts to make the web3 ecosystem more secure. Solo audits are a huge part of that, so we want to do as much as we can to encourage them — above and beyond providing a platform for auditors to prove their skills.
The boring stuff is now taken care of for you
All of this is why we’re so excited to release Code4rena Profiles. The ‘Get a quote’ function is the cornerstone of this release: it’s built to make solo auditors’ lives easier.
The logistics — scoping, negotiation, legal agreements, collection and distribution of funds, you name it; that’s all taken care of for you when you use this feature.
With all the admin handled by the friendly C4 team you already know and trust, your only concern needs to be doing what you do best: auditing code and getting rewarded for doing so.
Learn how to book your first solo audit through your Code4rena profile here.
