Civilization Hack

TOTAL LOST $180K
Low Other

Summarize with AI

ChatGPT Perplexity Claude Grok
Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface
Recovered - No recovery reported
All-Time Rank #1335 By amount stolen
Protocol Type Exploit/Other Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

Civilization, a decentralized hedge fund, was exploited, resulting in a loss of 96.73 ETH worth 180,474 USD.

Details of the Exploit

On July 08, 2023, Civilization's decentralized hedge fund was exploited through an Approval Related Issue in the CivTrade contract. The attacker successfully drained multiple types of assets including USDT, USDC, SHIB, BONE, LEASH, etc. Following these actions, the stolen assets were swapped for ETH and subsequently transferred to another EOA. Finally, the funds were deposited into TornadoCash, obfuscating the trail.

The total loss amounted to 96.73 ETH, equivalent to around 180,474 USD.

Block Data Reference

Attacker Address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0xc0ccff0B…0E4985

Funds Holder:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x01d4ebde…350880

Malicious Transaction: https://etherscan.io/tx/0xc42fc0e2…e20d6b

Funds Withdrawal Transaction: https://etherscan.io/tx/0x9b9bbc95…d73a85

TornadoCash Deposit Transaction: https://etherscan.io/tx/0xceb27e70…4adf59

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Civilization
Date of Incident
Attack Technique Other
Classification Other
Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exploit/Other
Affected Token CIV
Official Website civfund.org/
Protocol Twitter/X @CivFund
Team Anonymous
Source Code Verified On-Chain

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories
Memes Ethereum Ecosystem
Protocol Links

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 other and Solidity and EVM internals
Capital Required Seed capital to cover gas and initial position setup
On-Chain Access Ability to interact with smart contracts and deploy a custom exploit contract
Protocol Analysis Identification of the exploitable vulnerability in Civilization's contract logic - root cause: other
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 Other audit checklist and test coverage

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to Civilization, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (July 2023).

  • Verify all logic paths related to 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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