How much was lost in the Exvault Finance hack?

The Exvault Finance hack resulted in $73K in losses on October 25, 2020.

What attack technique was used in the Exvault Finance exploit?

The Exvault Finance exploit utilized Rugpull. 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.

Exvault Finance Hack

TOTAL LOST $73K

Low Oct 25, 2020 Rugpull ethereum

Affected Chain ethereum Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1619 By amount stolen

Auditors 1 Prior security audit

Incident Overview

The project team disappeared according to the pinned message in the Telegram group:

https://archive.is/OdohK

The project was holding a public sale event on the Bounce Finance platform:

https://v1.app.bounce.finance/fixed-swap/3859

180.21 ETH were gathered in total. The liquidity wasn't added. The website is down.

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Exvault Finance

Date of Incident October 25, 2020

Affected Chain(s) ethereum

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Yield

Affected Token EXCORE

Official Website www.exvault.finance/

Protocol Twitter/X @ExCoreVault

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories

DeFi DAO Ethereum Ecosystem Governance

Protocol Links

Discord

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 rugpull and Solidity and EVM internals

Capital Required Seed capital to cover gas and initial position setup

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

Protocol Analysis Identification of the exploitable vulnerability in Exvault Finance'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? Hard to catch — private key / OpSec failures are outside smart contract audit scope

Audited by Audit Report 1 — still lost $73K. Prior audits don't guarantee safety, especially after post-audit code changes.

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to Exvault Finance, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (October 2020).

Verify all logic paths related to Rugpull 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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Security Audit History

Audit Report 1 Report

Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://v1.app.bounce.finance/fixed-swap/3859

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2020

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