Euler Finance Hack

TOTAL LOST $196M
Critical #49 All-Time Flash Loan Attack

Summarize with AI

ChatGPT Perplexity Claude Grok
Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface
Recovered $177.0M 90.3% returned
All-Time Rank #49 By amount stolen
Auditors 1 Prior security audit

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

Euler Finance Suffers Hack Resulting in Loss of $196 Million USD in different assets.

Details of the Exploit

On March 13th, Euler Finance, an Ethereum-based noncustodial lending protocol, was attacked through a flash loan attack which resulted in the theft of millions in various cryptocurrencies, including Dai, USD Coin, staked Ether (StETH), and Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC). According to on-chain data, the attacker carried out multiple transactions and was able to steal nearly $196 million ($8.7 million in Dai, $18.5 million in Wrapped Bitcoin, $135.8 million in Staked Ethereum, and $33.8 million in Circle's USD stablecoin, USDC). Meta Seluth, a crypto analytic firm, reported that the attack is similar to a deflation attack that took place one month prior.

The attacker leveraged a multichain bridge to transfer funds from the BNB Smart Chain to Ethereum and then launched the attack. The funds were later deposited into Tornado Cash, a crypto mixer.

Block Data Reference

Exploit txs:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xc310a0af…6b111d

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x47ac3527…e4088f

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x3097830e…f1f311

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x465a6780…d131d9

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x62bd3d31…8b18c4

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x71a908be…c38617

Attacker addresses:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x5f259d0b…758b8c

https://etherscan.io/address/0xb2698c2d…7cedd4

Attacker contracts:

https://etherscan.io/address/0xebc29199…0cbf99

https://etherscan.io/address/0x036cec1a…825f1c

Technical Root Cause

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xe3f67f8e50042f09a3d9b6873bd15c14fa8b8176cfa1069bc1d3ab71e4b3fd0d https://etherscan.io/tx/0x19f802affe24572bac3af47983f42bbec6055117c6a32c3fddc58bd7545e5240 https://etherscan.io/tx/0x9f3edbd1eb404dec2e4d9aae93c739136f79c87f6382af25413ce705cc431f59

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This is classified as a Flash Loans Attacks . Compare similar hacks →

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Euler Finance
Date of Incident
Attack Technique Flash Loan Attack
Classification Borrowing and Lending
Primary Source View Post-Mortem #1 View Post-Mortem #2 View Post-Mortem #3 View Post-Mortem #4

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Lending
Affected Token EUL
Official Website app.euler.finance/
Protocol Twitter/X @eulerfinance
Team Anonymous
Source Code Unverified

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories
Ethereum Ecosystem BNB Chain Ecosystem
Protocol Links

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 flash loan attack and Solidity and EVM internals
Capital Required Flash loan capital (borrowed atomically, zero upfront cost)
On-Chain Access Ability to interact with smart contracts and deploy a custom exploit contract
Protocol Analysis Identification of the exploitable vulnerability in Euler Finance's contract logic - root cause: borrowing and lending
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 Flash Loan Attack vulnerabilities in code review
Audited by Audit Report 1 — still lost $196M. Prior audits don't guarantee safety, especially after post-audit code changes.

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

  • Verify all logic paths related to Flash Loan Attack are guarded by proper access controls and input validation - see the Flash Loans 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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Funds Recovery

90.3%

Recovered

$177.0M

Net Loss

19012000

Security Audit History

Related Attack Classes

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

See all Flash Loans Attacks examples →

Flash Loans Attacks

Sources & References

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