How much was lost in the L7 DEX hack?

The L7 DEX hack resulted in $161K in losses on October 18, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the L7 DEX exploit?

The L7 DEX 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.

L7 DEX Hack

TOTAL LOST $161K

Low Oct 18, 2023 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1373 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

LSD7 token project experienced an exit scam rugpull, with the scammer depleting the liquidity pool and causing a loss of 160,866 USD worth 761.63 WBNB.

Details of the Exploit

LSD7 is a BEP20 token trading on PancakeSwap. The deployer renounced ownership after creating the token, possibly to facilitate a later hack. The scammer (0x2FbE92...46454f14) minted a significantly larger number of tokens and then rug pulled by selling 1,000,000,000,000,000 $LSD7, completely depleting the liquidity pool.

The stolen funds were transferred to another EOA and then distributed between multiple addresses.

Block Data Reference

Deployer Address:

https://bscscan.com/address/0x03d08326…438fD1

Scammer Addresses:

https://bscscan.com/address/0x2FbE92F9…454f14

https://bscscan.com/address/0xFcCe0c3B…8FD2d4

https://bscscan.com/address/0x17F06EC1…a47831

Draining Transaction:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x3f1fb13b…bd68de

Incident Report

Protocol / Project L7 DEX

Date of Incident October 18, 2023

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull

Affected Token LSD7

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 L7 DEX'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 L7 DEX, 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/AegisWeb3/status/1714838580101779691

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2023

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