Hegic Hack

TOTAL LOST $48K
Low Other

Summarize with AI

ChatGPT Perplexity Claude Grok
Affected Chain 2020 Incident surface
Recovered $48K 100.0% returned
All-Time Rank #1722 By amount stolen
Auditors 1 Prior security audit

Incident Overview

The platform discovered a mistake in one of its smart contracts: ‘options.length' rather than ‘optionIDs.length.' This resulted in no liquidity for expiring contracts since user assets were locked whenever they did not utilize their options. Hegic spent $48K to fix the problem and reimburse impacted users.

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Hegic
Date of Incident
Attack Technique Other
Classification Other
Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Options
Affected Token HEGIC
Official Website www.hegic.co/
Protocol Twitter/X @HegicOptions

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 other 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 Hegic's contract logic - root cause: other
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? Likely — with a thorough Other audit checklist and test coverage
Audited by Trail of Bits — still lost $48K. Prior audits don't guarantee safety, especially after post-audit code changes.

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

  • Verify all logic paths related to Other 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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Funds Recovery

100.0%

Recovered

$48K

Net Loss

0

Security Audit History

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