Incident Overview
The Cryptopia exchange has reportedly been hacked again, even as it is being liquidated following a previous breach that stole NZ$24 million (US$15.5 million).
According to a Stuff report Thursday, a creditor, U.S. firm Stakenet, has been told that about NZ$62,000 (US$45,000) in the XSN cryptocurrency had been transferred out of its cold wallet on Feb. 1.
Incident Report
Protocol Information
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 Cryptopia Exchange, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (February 2021).
- Verify all logic paths related to Access Control are guarded by proper access controls and input validation - see the Access Control 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 TrialRelated Attack Classes
The technique used in this hack maps to these vulnerability classes in our security curriculum:
Sources & References
Learn to Prevent the Next Cryptopia Exchange
The Cryptopia Exchange 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.