Incident Overview
On September 19, 2024, Banana Gun suffered a $3M exploit targeting 11 users due to a Telegram message oracle vulnerability. The attacker manually transferred ETH from victims’ wallets while they interacted with the bot.
The attack exploited a vulnerability in Banana Gun’s Telegram message oracle, affecting both EVM and Solana bots, which operate independently. Smart money traders and crypto veterans were specifically targeted, indicating a highly selective attack. The attacker manually transferred ETH from victims’ wallets during live interactions, suggesting a real-time exploit rather than an automated script.
After a thorough investigation, the issue was patched, and enhanced security measures were implemented. No further attacks have been observed since the bot’s reactivation.
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 Banana Gun, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (September 2024).
- Verify all logic paths related to Front-end vulnerability / Other 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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