How much was lost in the Coindroplet hack?

The Coindroplet hack resulted in $23.1M in losses on September 06, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the Coindroplet exploit?

The Coindroplet exploit utilized Phishing. 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.

Coindroplet Hack

TOTAL LOST $23.1M

High Sep 06, 2023 Phishing

Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #210 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exploit/Phishing Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

A phishing attack led to a loss of 23,095,489 USD in stETH and rETH tokens on Sep 06, 2023.

Details of the Exploit

Coindroplet.io is a phishing website that targets users with fake airdrops. On Sep 06, 2023, a victim fell prey to the phishing attack, signing a malicious transaction that called the increaseAllowance() function. The attacker then executed two transactions, transferring 9,579.21 stETH and 4,850.98 rETH to their address.

The stolen funds were swapped to native ETH and DAI, then transferred through several EOA addresses, with part of the funds being deposited into TornadoCash. The attacker's address is associated with multiple websites, including coindroplet.io and coindroplet.net.

Block Data Reference

Attacker Address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x4c10a462…120ab1

Victim Address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x13e382df…94179e

Funds Holder as of Sep 11, 2023:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x4f2f02ee…12f322

https://etherscan.io/address/0x7023505e…787e49

https://etherscan.io/address/0x71c8482e…5a790e

Malicious Transaction:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xbb4fe89c…d4de53

Funds Transfer Transactions:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xcbe7b32e…f77913

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xb91d7b14…9b920f

TornadoCash Deposit Transaction:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xba94b21b…62f9e9

This is classified as a Phishing Attacks . Compare similar hacks →

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Coindroplet

Date of Incident September 06, 2023

Attack Technique Phishing

Classification Other

Primary Source View Post-Mortem #1 View Post-Mortem #2

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exploit/Phishing

Official Website coindroplet.io/

Protocol Twitter/X @CoinCollectOrg

Team Anonymous

Source Code Unverified

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories

Polygon Ecosystem

Protocol Links

GitHub Discord

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 phishing 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 Coindroplet'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 Phishing audit checklist and test coverage

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

Verify all logic paths related to Phishing are guarded by proper access controls and input validation - see the Phishing Attacks attack class for patterns
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.

Free Trial

Related Attack Classes

The technique used in this hack maps to these vulnerability classes in our security curriculum:

See all Phishing Attacks examples →

Phishing Attacks

Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://twitter.com/lookonchain/status/1699634572852621564
02
Source 2 https://twitter.com/realScamSniffer/status/1699605362696245523

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

HIGH

Attack Vector Phishing
Root Cause Other
Year 2023

Learn to Prevent the Next Coindroplet

The Coindroplet hack is one of many attacks that skilled auditors are trained to detect before deployment. Master real exploit patterns and defense techniques with hands-on Web3 security training.

Start Free Trial Browse Attack Library