How much was lost in the DEUS Finance hack?

The DEUS Finance hack resulted in $3.0M in losses on March 15, 2022.

What attack technique was used in the DEUS Finance exploit?

The DEUS Finance exploit utilized Flash Loan Attack. 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.

DEUS Finance Hack

TOTAL LOST $3.0M

Medium Mar 15, 2022 Flash Loan Attack

Affected Chain 2022 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #547 By amount stolen

Protocol Type CDP Target category

Incident Overview

The attacker's address:

https://ftmscan.com/address/0x1ed5112b…6198dd

The transaction behind the attack:

https://ftmscan.com/tx/0xe3744950…0a3a9c

The hack is made possible due to the flash loan-assisted manipulation of the price oracle that takes the price from the pair of StableV1 AMM - USDC/DEI.

The attacker:

- flash loaned 9,739342 DEI via SPIRIT-LP_USDC_DEI

- flash loaded 24,772,798 DEI out of the sAMM-USDC/DEI pair (used as price oracle to calculate the collateral value)

- liquidated users

- repaid the borrowed 24,772,798 DEI to the sAMM-USDC/DEI pair

- burnt the liquidated LP token to get 5,218,173 USDC + 5,246,603 DEI

- swapped 5,218,173 USDC to 5,170,594 DEI

- repaid the flash loan with 3,001,552 DEI as hack profit.

The attack profit was bridged via Multichain to Ethereum:

https://ftmscan.com/tx/0x09dc3a1a…7e3210

Then funds were deposited into Tornado Cash mixer to hide traces:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x1ed5112b…6198dd

This is classified as a Flash Loans Attacks . Compare similar hacks →

Incident Report

Protocol / Project DEUS Finance

Date of Incident March 15, 2022

Attack Technique Flash Loan Attack

Classification Other

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

Protocol Information

Protocol Type CDP

Affected Token DEI

Official Website deus.finance/

Protocol Twitter/X @DeusDao

Team Anonymous

Source Code Unverified

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories

Ethereum Ecosystem Polygon Ecosystem Fantom Ecosystem BNB Chain Ecosystem Base 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 flash loan attack and Solidity and EVM internals

Capital Required Flash loan capital (borrowed atomically, zero upfront cost)

On-Chain Access Ability to interact with smart contracts and deploy a custom exploit contract

Protocol Analysis Identification of the exploitable vulnerability in DEUS Finance'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? Yes — skilled auditors routinely flag Flash Loan Attack vulnerabilities in code review

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

Verify all logic paths related to Flash Loan Attack are guarded by proper access controls and input validation - see the Flash Loans 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 Flash Loans Attacks examples →

Flash Loans Attacks

Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://lafayettetabor.medium.com/deus-post-mortem-3c65df12927f
02
Source 2 https://rekt.news/deus-dao-rekt/
03
Source 3 https://twitter.com/peckshield/status/1503632734299701250

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

MEDIUM

Attack Vector Flash Loan Attack
Root Cause Other
Year 2022

Learn to Prevent the Next DEUS Finance

The DEUS Finance 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