How much was lost in the Bank Protocol hack?

The Bank Protocol hack resulted in $17K in losses on December 23, 2020.

What attack technique was used in the Bank Protocol exploit?

The Bank Protocol exploit utilized Rugpull. Understanding this attack vector is critical for smart contract auditors and developers building secure DeFi protocols.

How can developers prevent similar smart contract attacks?

Preventing smart contract hacks requires a combination of secure coding practices, thorough security audits, and understanding common attack vectors like reentrancy, oracle manipulation, and access control flaws. Smart Contract Hacking (SCH) provides hands-on training to help developers and auditors identify and prevent vulnerabilities before deployment.

Bank Protocol Hack

TOTAL LOST $17K

Low Dec 23, 2020 Rugpull ethereum

Affected Chain ethereum Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1903 By amount stolen

Auditors 1 Prior security audit

Incident Overview

The project was represented by a fake team, whose members impersonated other people. The project was holding a fundraising event, using BKP_Sales smart contract. 28.63 ETH was gathered from the investors at the following transactions:

https://bloxy.info/txs/transfers_to/0xafde309b…84a454?currency_id=1

The liquidity wasn't added. The website and socials are down. Stolen funds were distributed between some regular wallets.

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Bank Protocol

Date of Incident December 23, 2020

Affected Chain(s) ethereum

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Borrowing and Lending

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Yield

Affected Token BKP

Official Website bankprotocol.net/

Protocol Twitter/X @BK_Protocol

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.

Technical Knowledge Deep understanding of rugpull and Solidity and EVM internals

Capital Required Seed capital to cover gas and initial position setup

On-Chain Access Ability to interact with ethereum smart contracts and deploy a custom exploit contract

Protocol Analysis Identification of the exploitable vulnerability in Bank Protocol's contract logic - root cause: borrowing and lending

Execution Speed Precise transaction ordering and timing to exploit the vulnerability within a single atomic block

Obfuscation Plan A strategy to launder and move stolen funds - typically through mixers, cross-chain bridges, or decentralized DEX swaps to resist tracing

What Auditors Should Check

Could this have been caught in audit? Hard to catch — private key / OpSec failures are outside smart contract audit scope

Audited by Audit Report 1 — still lost $17K. Prior audits don't guarantee safety, especially after post-audit code changes.

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to Bank Protocol, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (December 2020).

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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Security Audit History

Audit Report 1 Report

Sources & References

01
Source 1 http://bankprotocol.net/
02
Web Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20201210111517/http://bankprotocol.net/

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Borrowing and Lending
Year 2020

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