How much was lost in the Dracula hack?

The Dracula hack resulted in $38K in losses on October 31, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the Dracula exploit?

The Dracula 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.

Dracula Hack

TOTAL LOST $38K

Low Oct 31, 2023 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1779 By amount stolen

Auditors 1 Prior security audit

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

DRAC token was rugpulled by deployer, removing liquidity worth 38,349 USD from PancakeSwap pool.

Details of the Exploit

DRAC is a BEP20 token trading on PancakeSwap. On Oct 31, 2023, the deployer performed a rugpull by swapping a significantly larger number of tokens, completely depleting the liquidity pool. As of Nov 2, 2023, the stolen funds remain in one of the scammer's addresses as BNB.

Block Data Reference

Deployer Address:

https://bscscan.com/address/0x63313Ba8…7f65bd

Scammer Addresses:

https://bscscan.com/address/0x057a2482…aFa79f

https://bscscan.com/address/0xE6EDaFAc…1C4E86

Liquidity Removal Transaction:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x26664093…05d946

Funds Holder as of Nov 2, 2023:

https://bscscan.com/address/0xE6EDaFAc…1C4E86

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Dracula

Date of Incident October 31, 2023

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Yield Aggregator

Affected Token DRAC

Protocol Twitter/X @DraculaProtocol

Team Anonymous

Source Code Verified On-Chain

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 Dracula'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

Audited by Audit Report 1 — still lost $38K. Prior audits don't guarantee safety, especially after post-audit code changes.

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to Dracula, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (October 2023).

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

Audit Report 1 Report

Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://twitter.com/PeckShieldAlert/status/1719369617947480544

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2023

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