How much was lost in the Friend Tech hack?

The Friend Tech hack resulted in $456K in losses on August 19, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the Friend Tech exploit?

The Friend Tech 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.

Friend Tech Hack

TOTAL LOST $456K

Low Aug 19, 2023 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1038 By amount stolen

Protocol Type SoFi Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

Friend Tech (FT) suffered a rugpull on Aug 19, 2023, causing a loss of 225,852 $USD (135.16 $ETH).

Details of the Exploit

Friend Tech (FT), an ERC20 token trading on UniSwap, fell victim to an exitscam on Aug 19, 2023. The deployer added liquidity for 100 $ETH and removed it on the same day for 235.16 $ETH, resulting in a profit of 135.16 $ETH for the scammer. The stolen funds were transferred to another EOA and then bridged to the Base chain.

A portion of the stolen tokens remains at the scammer's EOA.

Block Data Reference

- Deployer Address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x8522a110…33cCeD

- Scammer Addresses:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x0d540fc9…3734b8

https://etherscan.io/address/0x5b33f657…35d7c6

https://etherscan.io/address/0xe6c471ac…bb0a7c

- Funds Holder as of August 21, 2023:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x67f6EDaa…aBeaFf

- Liquidity Adding Transaction:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xfc032b29…a0f820

- Liquidity Removal Transaction:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x48e826fe…751056

- Bridging Transactions:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xec1b344f…89b954

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x32e8ce4c…1d2127

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Friend Tech

Date of Incident August 19, 2023

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem #1 View Post-Mortem #2

Protocol Information

Protocol Type SoFi

Affected Token FT

Official Website www.friend.tech

Protocol Twitter/X @friendtech

Team Anonymous

Source Code Verified On-Chain

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories

Communications & Social Media Social Token Base Ecosystem Friend Tech

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 rugpull and Solidity and EVM internals

Capital Required Seed capital to cover gas and initial position setup

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

Protocol Analysis Identification of the exploitable vulnerability in Friend Tech'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

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

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.

Free Trial

Post-Incident Timeline

2023-08-29

On August 29, 2023, the project was rugpulled on the Base chain for an additional 134 ETH. The stolen funds were distributed between multiple EOA addresses. Scammer Addresses: https://basescan.org/address/0xda238153e1ec9beafafd2bffeacb27cb29a63bcb https://basescan.org/address/0x8281b589ea0c0b126af00df3fae781140920500a Funds Draining Transaction: https://basescan.org/tx/0x87aeeaccf47eeaea17f637a0ab1b916e47bd9e4b7d7afb9a5a31f3b94c08f1fd

Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://twitter.com/CertiKAlert/status/1692932345249038650
02
Source 2 https://twitter.com/AnciliaInc/status/1696569985605267954

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2023

Learn to Prevent the Next Friend Tech

The Friend Tech hack is one of many attacks that skilled auditors are trained to detect before deployment. Master real exploit patterns and defense techniques with hands-on Web3 security training.

Start Free Trial Browse Attack Library