GAMEE Hack

TOTAL LOST $16.4M
High Access Control

Summarize with AI

ChatGPT Perplexity Claude Grok
Affected Chain 2024 Incident surface
Recovered - No recovery reported
All-Time Rank #253 By amount stolen
Protocol Type Chain Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

Animoca Brands' GAMEE token exploited on Polygon chain, resulting in a loss of 600,000,000 GMEE tokens due to compromised deployer key.

Details of the Exploit

On January 22,2024, Animoca Brands' GAMEE token was exploited on the Polygon chain due to unauthorized GitLab access and a compromised deployer key. The attacker accessed the GitLab repository containing the private key and exploited a vulnerability in the recoverERC721s() function, transferring 600 million GMEE tokens.The polygonscan explorer showed at the time when tokens were stole they were worth 16,352,814.The stolen tokens were swapped for MATIC and a portion was bridged to the Ethereum chain, then deposited into Tornado Cash, and 199.7 million of GMEE tokens are still at the scammers address.

Block Data Reference

Attacker Address:

https://polygonscan.com/address/0x16afA519…471b86

Funds Holder as of Jan 26, 2024:

https://polygonscan.com/address/0x44Ac627d…93F179

Malicious Transactions:

https://polygonscan.com/tx/0x70f7e037…861458

https://polygonscan.com/tx/0x9bf7dbf0…42b365

https://polygonscan.com/tx/0x2340cfde…45b849

Tornado Cash Deposits:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xe8b5babb…95f426

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x7ff28241…1906f4

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

Incident Report

Protocol / Project GAMEE
Date of Incident
Attack Technique Access Control
Classification Token
Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Chain
Affected Token GMEE
Official Website www.gamee.com/
Protocol Twitter/X @GAMEEToken
Team Anonymous
Source Code Verified On-Chain

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories
Communications & Social Media Collectibles & NFTs Gaming Ethereum Ecosystem Polygon Ecosystem Play To Earn Animoca Brands Portfolio BNB Chain Ecosystem
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 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 GAMEE'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 GAMEE, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (January 2024).

  • 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.

Free Trial

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

Browse all hacks

These hacks used the same attack technique. Understanding the pattern helps prevent future exploits.

BonkDAO $21.0M
Access Control
Token of Power $472K
Access Control
Humanity Protocol $31.0M
Access Control
Tessera DAO $2.4M
Access Control
Gravity Bridge $5.4M
Access Control
Stake DAO $91K
Access Control

Learn to Prevent the Next GAMEE

The GAMEE 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
Recreate exploit patterns safely Free Trial