How much was lost in the Hu Tao Spirit Soother hack?

The Hu Tao Spirit Soother hack resulted in $300K in losses on July 29, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the Hu Tao Spirit Soother exploit?

The Hu Tao Spirit Soother 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.

Hu Tao Spirit Soother Hack

TOTAL LOST $300K

Low Jul 29, 2023 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1155 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

Hu Tao Spirit Soother (HUTAO) rugpulled with 163.42 $ETH removed, a total loss of 299,831 $USD.

Details of the Exploit

Hu Tao Spirit Soother is an ERC20 token trading on UniSwap. On July 29, 2023, the deployer conducted a rugpull by removing liquidity from the LP pool. The stolen funds were transferred to another EOA address and then distributed between multiple addresses.

Specifically, 30 $ETH from the stolen funds were moved through TornadoCash, while the rest were distributed via CoinTool. The total loss in this exit scam is 299,831 $USD, equivalent to 163.42 $ETH.

Block Data Reference

Ethereum:

Deployer Address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x3B90E63E…40Cf98

Scammer Addresses:

https://etherscan.io/address/0xdd53bbcf…74c862

https://etherscan.io/address/0x13ef205d…8c0c5b

Liquidity Removal Transaction:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x4c839977…5e41e5

TornadoCash Deposit Transaction:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xcce99b88…424ba2

CoinTool Distribution Transactions:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x3f0745e9…1cbabe

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xa9ba1de5…806821

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Hu Tao Spirit Soother

Date of Incident July 29, 2023

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull

Affected Token HUTAO

Team Anonymous

Source Code Verified On-Chain

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 Hu Tao Spirit Soother'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 Hu Tao Spirit Soother, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (July 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.

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Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://twitter.com/CyversAlerts/status/1686289542897168384

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2023

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