External Call Risks
External call risks refer to the vulnerabilities introduced when a smart contract interacts with an external contract or address. These risks include reentrancy, unexpected gas consumption, and the possibility of the external contract executing malicious code.
Because the external contract's behavior cannot be fully predicted, developers must treat all external interactions with caution. This includes using low-level calls with caution, checking return values, and ensuring that the calling contract is prepared for any potential state changes caused by the interaction.
Mitigating these risks is essential for the security of DeFi protocols that rely on integrations with other contracts, such as oracles or liquidity pools. A defensive design assumes that external entities may be malicious or behave unpredictably.