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Research reports
In-depth security reports, incident analyses, and industry research covering the state of Web3 security.
Incident analysisMangoFarmSOL Exit ScamOn 6th January 2024, the MangoFarmSOL project conducted an exit scam leading to losses estimated around ~$1.32 million which is the largest exit scam that we have investigated in 2024 so far.
Incident analysisBot-Driven Wash Trading in Exit ScamsCertiK has detected multiple exit scams employing bots for wash trading, a deceptive practice designed to attract unsuspecting investors. These scammers employ a subtle yet effective technique, transferring funds across various tokens—a strategy that sometimes slips under the radar of security assessments and exit scam post-mortems.
Incident analysisXKingdom Incident AnalysisOn 6th January 2024, the XKingdom_Tech project stole community funds and deleted their website and all social media presence. In total, the XKingdom_Tech exit scam led to $1.2 million in losses making it one of the largest exit scams we have seen over the past few months. The stolen funds were bridged to Ethereum and deposited into Tornado Cash.
Incident analysisConcentric.Fi Incident AnalysisOn 22nd January, Concentric.fi was exploited leading to losses of over $1.85 million. The wallets that conducted the attack have been doxxed as the OKX exploiter. Concentric announced on X that their protocol was attacked due to a targeted social engineering attack leading to the compromise of one of their teams admin wallets. From there the attackers were able to upgrade Concentric vault contracts with a malicious implementation leading to losses in liquidity pools as well as users who had approved Concentric contracts.
Incident analysisSocket Tech Incident AnalysisOn 16 January 2024, Socket Tech was exploited by EOA 0x50df for approximately $3.3 million. The attacker took advantage of a vulnerability within the performAction function of a newly deployed contract which has an incomplete user input validation. Users who had approved the vulnerable SocketGateway contract had their funds stolen stolen. From this attack there were 230 wallets that lost funds with the biggest victim losing $656k USDC.
Incident analysisPost Mortem: Hector NetworkIn light of the $2.7 million withdrawal incident from Hector Network's contract, we have gathered all the relevant information and are committed to maintaining transparency with the public.
Incident analysisHoneypot ScamsFollowing on from our blog on The Proliferation of Honeypot Contracts in Web3 where we took a detailed look at a prolific honeypot creator, we take a look at the some common honeypot mechanisms and how they trap users funds.
Incident analysisNarwhal IncidentNarwhal’s token experienced two considerable drops within a two day period leading to an overall slippage of approximately 99%. The project’s official X account @Narwhal_fyi, announced that they had experienced an exploit, but did not give any specific details. Initial indications pointed to a private key compromise, however on-chain links suggest this incident was an exit scam. Approximately $1 million worth of funds were deposited into Tornado Cash with a further $410,000 sitting in two wallets. In this blog, we will outline the suspicious links that indicate that this incident is an exit scam.
Incident analysisOracle Dependency: Decrypting the Sturdy Finance AttackOn Jan 12, 2023, the lending platform Sturdy Finance was attacked, leading to a loss of 442 ETH. The attacker made use of a read-only reentrancy vector to manipulate the price used in a lending protocol to drain funds.
Incident analysisInitialization Oversight: The Merlin DEX ExploitOn April 26, 2023, Merlin DEX pools were drained due to a vulnerability in the initialization of the MerlinSwapPair contract, leading to a loss of 435 WETH and 811K USDC.
Incident analysisBGP Hijacking: The $1.9M KLAYswap Attack Through Manipulated Network FlowOn Feb 3, 2022, KLAYswap was attacked, leading to a loss of $1.9M. The attackers manipulated the network flow and configured it in such a way that the users who were connected to KLAYswap could download malicious code from the server.
Incident analysisCurve Conundrum: The dForce Attack via a Read-Only Reentrancy Vector ExploitOn Feb 9, 2023, dForce's lending protocol was attacked, leading to a loss of $3.7M. The attacker made use of a read-only reentrancy vector to manipulate the price in the lending protocol to drain funds from the pool.