How much was lost in the dForce Lending hack?

The dForce Lending hack resulted in $25.0M in losses on April 19, 2020.

What attack technique was used in the dForce Lending exploit?

The dForce Lending exploit utilized Reentrancy. 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.

dForce Lending Hack

TOTAL LOST $25.0M

High #199 All-Time Apr 19, 2020 Reentrancy ethereum

Affected Chain ethereum Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #199 By amount stolen

Auditors 1 Prior security audit

Incident Overview

Permissionless liquidity network built for Web3. dForce has developed a comprehensive suite of web3 infrastructure protocols, including standardized decentralized stablecoins, general money markets, yield tokens, RWA tokens, and more. We are also committed to developing protocols that can significantly enhance liquidity in the Bitcoin L2, DePIN, and decentralized AI ecosystems

This is classified as a Reentrancy . Compare similar hacks →

Incident Report

Protocol / Project dForce Lending

Date of Incident April 19, 2020

Affected Chain(s) ethereum

Attack Technique Reentrancy

Classification Protocol Logic

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Lending

Official Website dforce.network/

Protocol Twitter/X @dForcenet

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 reentrancy and Solidity and EVM internals

Capital Required Seed capital to cover gas and initial position setup

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

Protocol Analysis Identification of the exploitable vulnerability in dForce Lending's contract logic - root cause: protocol logic

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 Reentrancy vulnerabilities in code review

Audited by Audit Report 1 — still lost $25.0M. Prior audits don't guarantee safety, especially after post-audit code changes.

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to dForce Lending, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (April 2020).

Verify all logic paths related to Reentrancy are guarded by proper access controls and input validation - see the Reentrancy attack class for patterns
Check that all state-changing functions follow the Checks-Effects-Interactions (CEI) pattern to prevent reentrancy and logic ordering bugs
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

Audit Report 1 Report

Related Attack Classes

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

See all Reentrancy examples →

Reentrancy

Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://decrypt.co/26033/dforce-lendfme-defi-hack-25m

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

HIGH

Attack Vector Reentrancy
Root Cause Protocol Logic
Year 2020

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