How much was lost in the Fantom Foundation hack?

The Fantom Foundation hack resulted in $7.4M in losses on October 17, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the Fantom Foundation exploit?

The Fantom Foundation 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.

Fantom Foundation Hack

TOTAL LOST $7.4M

Medium Oct 17, 2023 Access Control

Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #358 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exploit/Access control Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

Fantom Foundation suffered a phishing attack on Oct 17, 2023, resulting in a loss of 7,359,282 USD worth 4701.84 ETH.

Details of the Exploit

In October 2023, an attacker targeted the Fantom Foundation, causing over 7 million USD in losses. The majority of the stolen funds belonged to an employee who was using wallets previously assigned to the Fantom Foundation. Early reports pointed to a vulnerability in Google Chrome, either a zero-day vulnerability or a known heap overflow vulnerability (CVE-2023-4863).

The Fantom Foundation acknowledges the security incident, stating that approximately 550K USD was stolen from the Foundation itself, and the rest belonged to the employee. The attack vector remains unclear, and further investigation is ongoing.

Block Data Reference

Funds Holder as of Oct 21, 2023:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x0b1F29DF…FE9596

Attackers:

https://ftmscan.com/address/0x1d93c73d…e4f878

https://etherscan.io/address/0x1d93c73d…e4f878

https://etherscan.io/address/0x2f4f1d2c…5f4001

Funds Transfer Transactions:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xf574dde0…7805f8

Malicious Transactions:

https://ftmscan.com/tx/0xa7c3d133…c60ac3

https://ftmscan.com/tx/0x334f62e0…5bf09a

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xd5d9950e…bd0f8e

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

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Fantom Foundation

Date of Incident October 17, 2023

Attack Technique Access Control

Classification Other

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exploit/Access control

Affected Token FTM

Official Website fantom.foundation/

Protocol Twitter/X @FantomFDN

Team Public / Doxxed

Source Code Unverified

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 Fantom Foundation'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

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

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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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/CyversAlerts/status/1714308396453695518
02
Web Archive https://archive.ph/dpQtH

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

MEDIUM

Attack Vector Access Control
Root Cause Other
Year 2023

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