Incident Overview
Bitsane, an Irish cryptocurrency exchange, has apparently vanished in a multimillion-euro fraud. Over 100 people have lost between €5,000 (~$5,700) and €132,000 (~$150,000).
Bitsane reportedly went offline on June 17 and its Twitter and Facebook accounts have also been deleted. On June 19, one Twitter user posted that he can’t withdraw XRP from Bitsane:
One user named Shane Johnson, who claims to be “a US Army veteran,” tweeted that he is missing over $7000 worth of crypto in Bitsane:
https://twitter.com/MrShaneson/status/1143943208398983168
Another user from India, named Vikas Tak, tweeted that Bitsane closed their exchange “without any notice” and that he is unable to recover his 6,400 XRP tokens:
https://twitter.com/VikasTa96623196/status/1143760208222494720
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 Bitsane, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (June 2019).
- 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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