KyberSwap Elastic Hack

TOTAL LOST $48.0M
High #130 All-Time Flashloan Swap Logic Exploit / Flash Loan Attack arbitrum base ethereum optimism polygon

Summarize with AI

ChatGPT Perplexity Claude Grok
Affected Chain arbitrum 5 chains affected
Recovered - No recovery reported
All-Time Rank #130 By amount stolen
Auditors 1 Prior security audit

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

KyberSwap DEX suffers a $45 million loss in cross-chain flash loan price manipulation attack.

Details of the Exploit

On November 23, 2023, KyberSwap, a cross-chain DEX, was exploited in a flash loan attack that manipulated prices and ticks, leading to an approximate loss of $45 million across several chains. The attacker used a flash loan to deplete pools with low liquidity by executing swaps and strategic position changes. Multiple swap steps and cross-tick operations were initiated to induce double liquidity counting, effectively draining the pools. The attacker also sent an on-chain message, stating that negotiations would start once they were fully rested.

Losses across chains:

- Ethereum

- 7,624,223 USD worth of WETH, KNC, USDC, and more

- Arbitrum

- 20,378,076 USD worth of WETH, ARB, WBTC, DAI, and more

- Polygon

- 1,196,359 USD worth of WETH, WMATIC, WBTC, and more

- Base

- 325,085 USD worth WETH

- Optimism

- 15,738,093 USD worth of wstETH, cbETH, WETH, OP, and more

- Avalanche

- 23,592 USD worth of USDC and AVAX

Block Data Reference

Ethereum:

- Attacker: https://etherscan.io/address/0x50275E0B…3BE836

- Malicious Transaction: https://etherscan.io/tx/0x485e08dc…92f0f3

- On-chain Message: https://etherscan.io/tx/0x7a891258…4dc40a

Arbitrum:

- Funds Holders:

https://arbiscan.io/address/0xc9b826ba…0b50c6

https://arbiscan.io/address/0x84E66f86…F7Adb4

https://arbiscan.io/address/0x98d69d3e…0b88d3

- Malicious Transaction: https://arbiscan.io/tx/0x567f0ba7…b11c5b

- Bridging Transaction: https://arbiscan.io/tx/0x8a7fc196…0789e4

Avalanche:

- Funds Holders: https://snowtrace.io/address/0xc9b826ba…0b50c6

- Malicious Transaction: https://snowtrace.io/tx/0x96d90b23…bf9714

Optimism:

- Funds Holders: https://optimistic.etherscan.io/address/0xc9b826ba…0b50c6

- Malicious Transaction: https://optimistic.etherscan.io/tx/0x7f325cf1…c5c874

Polygon:

- Funds Holders: https://polygonscan.com/address/0xc9b826ba…0b50c6

- Malicious Transaction: https://polygonscan.com/tx/0xb58c8146…df8b0c

Base:

- Funds Holders: https://basescan.org/address/0xc9b826ba…0b50c6

- Malicious Transaction: https://basescan.org/tx/0x0a2957e7…27f9f7

This is classified as a Flash Loans Attacks . Compare similar hacks →

Incident Report

Protocol / Project KyberSwap Elastic
Date of Incident
Affected Chain(s) arbitrum base ethereum optimism polygon
Attack Technique Flashloan Swap Logic Exploit / Flash Loan Attack
Classification Protocol Logic / Exchange (DEX)
Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Dexs
Smart Contract Language Solidity
Official Website kyberswap.com/
Protocol Twitter/X @KyberNetwork
Team Public / Doxxed
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 flashloan swap logic exploit / flash loan attack and Solidity and EVM internals
Capital Required Flash loan capital (borrowed atomically, zero upfront cost)
On-Chain Access Ability to interact with arbitrum, base, ethereum, optimism, polygon smart contracts and deploy a custom exploit contract
Protocol Analysis Identification of the exploitable vulnerability in KyberSwap Elastic's contract logic - root cause: protocol logic / exchange (dex)
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? Yes — skilled auditors routinely flag Flashloan Swap Logic Exploit / Flash Loan Attack vulnerabilities in code review
Audited by Audit Report 1 — still lost $48.0M. Prior audits don't guarantee safety, especially after post-audit code changes.

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to KyberSwap Elastic, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (November 2023).

  • Verify all logic paths related to Flashloan Swap Logic Exploit / Flash Loan Attack are guarded by proper access controls and input validation - see the Flash Loans 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.

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Security Audit History

Related Attack Classes

The technique used in this hack maps to these vulnerability classes in our security curriculum:

See all Flash Loans Attacks examples →

Flash Loans Attacks

Proof-of-Concept Exploits

1 PoC available
poc-exploits - kyberswap elastic
$ KyberSwap precision loss

On-Chain Evidence & References

Sources & References

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