How much was lost in the DeFiAi hack?

The DeFiAi hack resulted in $4.2M in losses on November 13, 2022.

What attack technique was used in the DeFiAi exploit?

The DeFiAi exploit utilized Rugpull. 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.

DeFiAi Hack

TOTAL LOST $4.2M

Medium Nov 13, 2022 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2022 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #469 By amount stolen

Auditors 1 Prior security audit

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

DeFiAi protocol was rugged by using a backdoor in the farm contract with a profit of more than 4M $USD.

Details of the Exploit

DeFiAI is a yield aggregator and the first DEX run by AI. The project was rugpulled for 4,173,646 $USD. The funds were drained from the project's contract with unverified source code and distributed between 10 EOA addresses and then transferred through FixedFloat and MexcGlobal.

The project announced on Twitter that they were "hacked" and will rebase the remaining funds and reopen the project's smart contracts.

Block Data Reference

Unverified contract with malicious logic:

https://bscscan.com/address/0x042a97c6…cdf722

Withdraw example:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x39462d56…c248ce

Rug pull TXs were selected by Mist:

https://misttrack.io/s/b4Dm0

Incident Report

Protocol / Project DeFiAi

Date of Incident November 13, 2022

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Yield Aggregator

Primary Source View Post-Mortem #1 View Post-Mortem #2 View Post-Mortem #3

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull

Affected Token DFAI

Official Website www.defiai.ai/

Protocol Twitter/X @DeFiAiOfficial

Team Anonymous

Source Code Unverified

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories

AI & Big Data Base Ecosystem DeFAI

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 rugpull 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 DeFiAi's contract logic - root cause: yield aggregator

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? Hard to catch — private key / OpSec failures are outside smart contract audit scope

Audited by Hacken — still lost $4.2M. Prior audits don't guarantee safety, especially after post-audit code changes.

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to DeFiAi, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (November 2022).

Verify all logic paths related to Rugpull 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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Security Audit History

Hacken 2022-07-29 Report

Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://twitter.com/DeFiAiOfficial/status/1591783217040064513
02
Source 2 https://misttrack.io/s/b4Dm0
03
Source 3 https://web3isgoinggreat.com/?id=over-4-million-drained-from-defiai

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

MEDIUM

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Yield Aggregator
Year 2022

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