How much was lost in the Eco DeFi hack?

The Eco DeFi hack resulted in $794K in losses on December 28, 2021.

What attack technique was used in the Eco DeFi exploit?

The Eco DeFi exploit utilized Access Control. 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.

Eco DeFi Hack

TOTAL LOST $794K

Low Dec 28, 2021 Access Control

Affected Chain 2021 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #864 By amount stolen

Auditors 1 Prior security audit

Incident Overview

The attacker:

- swapped 0.02 WBNB to 12.368 XRP

- deposited 12.368 XRP to the pool 0xc406

https://bscscan.com/address/0xc4068f46…de4dab

- minted 60,975,194,844 eXRP share tokens

- set admin (newAdmin()) in Unitroller contract (0x6f5edd47…cf919e) to the malicious contract (0x8043bfe3…80a179)

- new owner called setPriceOracle() and changed oracle address from 0xf074b445…b69528 to malicious one

0x8043bfe3…80a179

- wrong oracle data allowed withdrawing all assets from the pool:

69,940.838139881955983638 ($69,530.01) (BSC-US...)

57,211.335292168881759699 ($57,182.27) (USDC)

46,906.146588682998823308 ($46,845.31) (BUSD)

335,725.42257116669113152 ($286,829.58) (VAI)

13.280051065798373675 ($51,503.49) (ETH)

0.581669136989633591 ($28,460.35) (BTCB)

244.082029656114025206 ($133,271.00) (WBNB)

268.860558650762202142 (SOL)

3,279.711492555105148787 ($52,392.89) (XVS)

5,614.98460021139519757 ($69,977.67) (Cake)

99,994,616.089438012 (JOJO)

Stolen funds are held at the following address:

https://bscscan.com/address/0x68926c85…dd4ce8

This is classified as a Access Control Attacks . Compare similar hacks →

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Eco DeFi

Date of Incident December 28, 2021

Attack Technique Access Control

Classification Yield Aggregator

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Lending

Affected Token ECOP

Official Website evodefi.com

Protocol Twitter/X @eco_defi

Team Public / Doxxed

Source Code Unverified

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories

Polygon Ecosystem BNB Chain Ecosystem

Protocol Links

GitHub

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 Operational-security tradecraft (phishing, malware, leaked seed phrases, or insider access) to obtain treasury signing authority

Capital Required Minimal capital - only enough to cover gas while draining the compromised accounts

On-Chain Access Valid signing authority over the compromised wallets / multisig signers, allowing direct transfer of funds or stake authorization

Target Reconnaissance Identification of Eco DeFi's high-value treasury accounts and the authority / multisig structure controlling them

Execution Speed Speed to drain the compromised accounts before the team detects the breach and revokes signing authority or freezes the assets

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 Access Control audit checklist and test coverage

Audited by Audit Report 1 — still lost $794K. Prior audits don't guarantee safety, especially after post-audit code changes.

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

Verify all logic paths related to Access Control are guarded by proper access controls and input validation - see the Access Control 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.

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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 Access Control Attacks examples →

Access Control Attacks

Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://twitter.com/peckshield/status/1475805663544877058

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Access Control
Root Cause Yield Aggregator
Year 2021

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