How much was lost in the IVY hack?

The IVY hack resulted in $1.8M in losses on October 16, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the IVY exploit?

The IVY 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.

IVY Hack

TOTAL LOST $1.8M

Medium Oct 16, 2023 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #686 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

YVI token rugpull exit scam occurred on Oct 16, 2023, with liquidity removal and 234,361 USD worth of tokens sold, resulting in a total loss of 1,820,319 USD.

Details of the Exploit

YVI is a BEP20 token trading on PancakeSwap. On Oct 16, 2023, the Deployer renounced ownership after creating the contract. The scammer then removed liquidity from the LP pool and sold tokens in sixteen transactions worth 234,361 USD.

The stolen funds were transferred to other addresses and converted from BSC-USD to USDT, resulting in a total loss of 1,820,319 USD.

Block Data Reference

Deployer Address:

https://bscscan.com/address/0x00B3aa7E…534B23

Scammer Addresses:

https://bscscan.com/address/0x5c30d0a9…3de64b

https://bscscan.com/address/0xee5797EC…523cC5

Liquidity Removal Transaction:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x86761605…6d60ec

Stolen Funds Holder (USDT):

https://bscscan.com/address/0xcE97bEb4…89c40a

Incident Report

Protocol / Project IVY

Date of Incident October 16, 2023

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull

Affected Token IVY

Official Website ivendpay.com

Protocol Twitter/X @ivpay_io

Team Anonymous

Source Code Verified On-Chain

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories

Payments BNB Chain Ecosystem

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 IVY'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 IVY, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (October 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/CertiKAlert/status/1713869113578160477

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

MEDIUM

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2023

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