How much was lost in the Bongo Cat hack?

The Bongo Cat hack resulted in — in losses on April 11, 2021.

What attack technique was used in the Bongo Cat exploit?

The Bongo Cat exploit utilized Honeypot. 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.

Bongo Cat Hack

TOTAL LOST —

Apr 11, 2021 Honeypot binance

Affected Chain binance Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

Same Technique 1089 Total incidents

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Honeypot Target category

Incident Overview

The contract owner could disable the transfer function, which restricted users in selling their tokens.

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Bongo Cat

Date of Incident April 11, 2021

Affected Chain(s) binance

Attack Technique Honeypot

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Honeypot

Affected Token BONGO

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 honeypot and Solidity and EVM internals

Capital Required Seed capital to cover gas and initial position setup

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

Protocol Analysis Identification of the exploitable vulnerability in Bongo Cat's contract logic - root cause: token

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? Likely — with a thorough Honeypot audit checklist and test coverage

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to Bongo Cat, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (April 2021).

Verify all logic paths related to Honeypot 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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Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://twitter.com/Token_Sniffer/status/1373698524961906691

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

UNKNOWN

Attack Vector Honeypot
Root Cause Token
Year 2021

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