How much was lost in the DHE hack?

The DHE hack resulted in $142K in losses on June 20, 2022.

What attack technique was used in the DHE exploit?

The DHE 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.

DHE Hack

TOTAL LOST $142K

Low Jun 20, 2022 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2022 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1412 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull Target category

Incident Overview

Quick summary

At the inception of the project 3,999,000 $DHE token were minted to the address of the scammer. The scammer dumped the $DHE token against $USDT on pancake swap, resulting in a 92% drop in the token value and 142k $USDT in ill-gotten gains.

Details of the exploit

The project promised its investors to revolutionize content ownership through NFTs and thus making content tradable on its own platform, denominated in $DHE.

The owners of the project never intended to make due on this promise as a large amount of $DHE token were minted to a specific wallet at inception resulting in a massive centralization issue from the start. Within 5min in the evening of the 20th June the scammer decided to dump his $DHE token through pancake swap.

As the time of this writing information on this case is scarce. More sources will be added if the case should develop.

Block Data Reference

Token Holder Structure

https://bscscan.com/token/0x11cbc781…7820af#balances

Scammer Wallet Address (A), which received 3,999,000 $DHE.

https://bscscan.com/tx/0xa2779bbd…33f77a

Transaction over 100,000 DHE Token from scammer Wallet Address (A) to (B)

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x08d1a07a…771e29

Scammer Wallet Address (B), which dumped the $DHE.

https://bscscan.com/token/0x11cbc781…7820af?a=0x3ff95c56…3edb9e

Incident Report

Protocol / Project DHE

Date of Incident June 20, 2022

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull

Affected Token DHE

Team Anonymous

Source Code Unverified

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 DHE's contract logic - root cause: token

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

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to DHE, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (June 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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Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://dexscreener.com/bsc/0x3195a6935e3834f2f1d9fa28e32f92eb27d32d6
02
Web Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20220101025122/https://www.denhive.c…

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2022

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