Incident Overview
On March 23, 2023, the team behind the Arbitrum (fake) token executed a rug pull, resulting in a loss of funds worth $59k USD.
The attack on the Arbitrum (fake) token involved the token contract deployer manipulating the liquidity pool by removing liquidity from the pair contract and selling a large quantity of tokens on the market. This resulted in a rapid drop in the token's price by approximately 90%. The deployer took advantage of their ability to manipulate the liquidity pool and market to execute a rug pull, effectively stealing funds from investors.
The exploit highlights the importance of careful token contract design and the need for investors to perform due diligence before investing in new projects.
Deployer:
https://bscscan.com/address/0x8b796689…3fae62
Example TX of removing liquidity:
https://bscscan.com/tx/0x021e9e20…688922
Incident Report
Protocol Information
Market Context at Time of Hack
What the Attacker Needed to Succeed
Understanding the prerequisites for this type of attack helps auditors identify protocols that are most at risk and helps developers build better defenses.
What Auditors Should Check
If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to Arbitrum, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (March 2023).
- Verify all logic paths related to Rugpull are guarded by proper access controls and input validation
- Review privileged functions (owner, admin, governance) for potential abuse vectors - centralization risks should be documented and bounded with timelocks or multi-sigs
Master these auditing techniques with hands-on labs and real exploit scenarios in the Smart Contract Hacking course.
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