How much was lost in the Echelon DAO hack?

The Echelon DAO hack resulted in $63K in losses on April 10, 2021.

What attack technique was used in the Echelon DAO exploit?

The Echelon DAO exploit utilized Honeypot. 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.

Echelon DAO Hack

TOTAL LOST $63K

Low Apr 10, 2021 Honeypot binance

Affected Chain binance Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1660 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Honeypot Target category

Incident Overview

The contract owner could disable the transfer function, which restricted users in selling their tokens:

https://honeypot.is/index.html?address=0x087cf908…0cfa8a

The project was holding a fundraising event. After its end, the contract deployer withdrew raised BNB at:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x030d5f53…8fb156

https://bscscan.com/tx/0xcbc9ba78…8b920e

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x1ced363a…e0809b

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Echelon DAO

Date of Incident April 10, 2021

Affected Chain(s) binance

Attack Technique Honeypot

Classification Token

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Honeypot

Affected Token ECHO

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 honeypot and Solidity and EVM internals

Capital Required Seed capital to cover gas and initial position setup

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

Protocol Analysis Identification of the exploitable vulnerability in Echelon DAO'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? Likely — with a thorough Honeypot audit checklist and test coverage

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to Echelon DAO, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (April 2021).

Verify all logic paths related to Honeypot 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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Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Honeypot
Root Cause Token
Year 2021

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