Exactly Hack

Reported loss $7.6M
Optimism
DebtManager Exploit

What happened

Exactly Protocol's August 18, 2023 DebtManager exploit affected 117 accounts, with losses of $7,612,038 in the team's final accounting. Existing token allowances exposed leveraged users to unauthorized withdrawals.

Technical root cause

Unvalidated market inputs and permit handling allowed reentrant operations under another user's identity.

How it happened

  1. The attacker supplied a malicious market and the victim's account to leverage, bypassing the permit check.
  2. A callback reentered crossDeleverage while DebtManager still acted for the victim.
  3. Victim assets were routed into an attacker-controlled swap pool and extracted. A separate share-accounting flaw enabled further liquidations.
  4. Exactly paused most operations; withdrawals remained available. Its Strategies section returned on September 26 after ABDK audited DebtManager.

Protocol details

Classification Protocol Logic / Access Control / Borrowing and Lending
Protocol Type Lending
Affected asset / contract EXA
Implementation language Solidity

Security review history

Build your security review skills

Work through hands-on labs covering real exploit mechanics, review techniques, and defensive patterns.