Incident Overview
On September 9, 2025, Evoq Finance on BNB Chain was exploited for approximately $420,000 after attackers compromised the owner account's private key. The attackers transferred ownership to themselves, upgraded the proxy contract to a malicious implementation, and drained funds from both the protocol and user token approvals.
The attack was executed through a sophisticated multi-step process beginning with the compromise of the owner account's private key (0xF08d1c). The attackers used the stolen credentials to call the transferOwnership() function, transferring control to their own address (0x7b416F). With ownership secured, they employed the upgradeAndCall() function to upgrade the proxy contract to a malicious implementation that enabled fund drainage.
The malicious contract systematically drained approximately $420,000 from both the protocol's treasury and users who had previously granted token approvals to the contract. This attack highlights critical vulnerabilities in single-key ownership models for DeFi protocols, where compromise of a single private key can lead to complete protocol takeover. GoPlus Security has urged all users to immediately revoke token approvals for the exploited contract to prevent further losses and recommended that projects implement multi-signature wallets for admin functions along with regular key rotation practices.
Incident Report
Protocol Information
Market Context at Time of Hack
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.
What Auditors Should Check
If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to Evoq Finance, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (September 2025).
- Verify all logic paths related to Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) attack / 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.
Free TrialRelated Attack Classes
The technique used in this hack maps to these vulnerability classes in our security curriculum:
Sources & References
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