How much was lost in the Kickboxer Tate hack?

The Kickboxer Tate hack resulted in $33K in losses on May 04, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the Kickboxer Tate exploit?

The Kickboxer Tate 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.

Kickboxer Tate Hack

TOTAL LOST $33K

Low May 04, 2023 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1809 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

Kickboxer Tate project was rugpulled by the deployer-related address, which drained roughly 33,000 $USD worth of $ETH.

Details of the Exploit

Kickboxer Tate is an ERC20 token trading on the UniswapV2 pool in the Ethereum network. The token experienced a significant drop after a malicious action in which the initial buyers and deployers coordinated to drain liquidity from the pool. Investigation revealed that an EOA address bought 38,000,000 $KBTate tokens with 0.25 $ETH, then dumped them for 17.4 $ETH in one transaction to another EOA address controlled by the scammer's group.

The attacker transferred funds to their own account, which received additional cash injections from the tokens deployer.

Block Data Reference

Scammer Address as Deployer:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x188602fb…0e17B4

Scammer Address as Dumper:

https://etherscan.io/address/0xc7e90f04…3f6a83

Scammer Address as Funds Holder:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x753bD509…8836B0

Drain Transaction:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x16da62cb…990a23

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Kickboxer Tate

Date of Incident May 04, 2023

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull

Affected Token KBTate

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 Kickboxer Tate'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 Kickboxer Tate, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (May 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/PeckShieldAlert/status/1654035186403901441?s=20

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2023

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