Incident Overview
A hacker exploited the illiquid BTC/CAD pair on Kraken, causing a 99% drop in the Bitcoin-to-Canadian Dollar (CAD) pair.
The attacker gained access to a compromised account with 1200BTC but was unable to withdraw. The attacker then placed his own limit of $100 buy orders on the illiquid BTC/CAD pair. Returning to the compromised account, the attacker dumped the 1200BTC on the BTC/CAD pair to himself, effectively becoming the legitimate owner of 1200BTC.
Incident Report
Protocol Information
Market Context at Time of Hack
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.
What Auditors Should Check
If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to Kraken, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (June 2019).
- Verify all logic paths related to Access Control are guarded by proper access controls and input validation - see the Access Control Attacks attack class for patterns
- 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.
Free TrialRelated Attack Classes
The technique used in this hack maps to these vulnerability classes in our security curriculum:
Sources & References
Learn to Prevent the Next Kraken
The Kraken hack is one of many attacks that skilled auditors are trained to detect before deployment. Master real exploit patterns and defense techniques with hands-on Web3 security training.