How much was lost in the IPO hack?

The IPO hack resulted in $585K in losses on June 20, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the IPO exploit?

The IPO 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.

IPO Hack

TOTAL LOST $585K

Low Jun 20, 2023 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #967 By amount stolen

Auditors 2 Prior security audits

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

IPO project was rugpulled through custom pools by scammers who drained assets worth 585,153 $USD in two transactions

Details of the Exploit

IPO is a BEP20 token trading on custom liquidity pools on Binance Smart Chain. The deployer created these pools with unverified source code, which allowed certain addresses to use privileged functions and drain the pool. On June 20, 2023, the pool was drained for 102,164 $USDT, part of a total loss amounting to 585,153 $USD.

Block Data Reference

Deployer Address:

https://bscscan.com/address/0x32e4152e…18d079

Scammer Addresses:

https://bscscan.com/address/0x7861f822…227682

https://bscscan.com/address/0x35fef3c5…7bfc7b

Funds Holder Address:

https://bscscan.com/address/0xc18fbb46…0fef27

Malicious Contract:

https://bscscan.com/address/0x4b50a547…67a20c

Draining Transactions:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x6f678313…c65264

https://bscscan.com/tx/0xadfb6755…7fd161

Incident Report

Protocol / Project IPO

Date of Incident June 20, 2023

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

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

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Liquid Staking

Affected Token IPO

Official Website hipo.finance

Protocol Twitter/X @hipofinance

Team Anonymous

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 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 IPO'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

Audited by Audit Report 1, Audit Report 2 — still lost $585K. Prior audits don't guarantee safety, especially after post-audit code changes.

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to IPO, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (June 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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Security Audit History

Audit Report 1 Report
Audit Report 2 Report

Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://twitter.com/DeDotFiSecurity/status/1670999046503145472
02
Source 2 https://twitter.com/DeDotFiSecurity/status/1681691843266850818

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2023

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