Cream Finance Hack

TOTAL LOST —
Other

Summarize with AI

ChatGPT Perplexity Claude Grok
Affected Chain 2021 Incident surface
Recovered - No recovery reported
Same Technique 415 Total incidents
Protocol Type Dexs Target category

Incident Overview

DNS hijacking was discovered at Cream Finance. Their GoDaddy account was hacked, and users were redirected to a phishing website.

Incident timeline:

1. The website was down; users reported a website outage

2. GoDaddy DNS CNAME record not pointing to their hosting IP, consistent with the website outage

3. DNS A record was updated to the correct IP; root cause analysis began

4. Noticed DNS cache pollution, consistent with user reports; Began DNS migration to Cloudflare

5. Discovered that GoDaddy login credentials were compromised and could not log in

6. CoinGecko, CoinMarketCap, and imToken were notified to update the website link and put up warning messages

7. Two alternative websites were put for users to continue using Cream Finance

8. The ownership of the domain was reclaimed with the help of GoDaddy, started to recover the service and ensure the security

9. The website returned to normal, while some regions were still affected as DNS propagation continued

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Cream Finance
Date of Incident
Attack Technique Other
Classification Exchange (DEX),Borrowing and Lending
Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Dexs
Affected Token CREAM
Official Website cream.finance/
Protocol Twitter/X @CreamdotFinance

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 Cream Finance's contract logic - root cause: exchange (dex),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? Likely — with a thorough Other audit checklist and test coverage

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

  • 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

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