How much was lost in the LendHub hack?

The LendHub hack resulted in $6.0M in losses on January 16, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the LendHub exploit?

The LendHub exploit utilized Collateral Offboarding Mistake. 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.

LendHub Hack

TOTAL LOST $6.0M

Medium Jan 16, 2023 Collateral Offboarding Mistake heco

Affected Chain heco Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #398 By amount stolen

Auditors 3 Prior security audits

Incident Overview

LendHub is a decentralized lending platform based on the Huobi Ecological Chain. It supports pledged lending of multiple currencies on the Heco chain. Users can obtain incentive token LHB rewards by borrowing on LendHub.

LHB will serve as the hub of the LendHub platform, and realize the mutual accommodation and value transfer between Huobi ecological assets through pledged lending that supports the mutual accommodation of assets on the Huobi ecological chain.

Incident Report

Protocol / Project LendHub

Date of Incident January 16, 2023

Affected Chain(s) heco

Attack Technique Collateral Offboarding Mistake

Classification Protocol Logic

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Lending

Smart Contract Language Solidity

Protocol Twitter/X @LendHubDefi

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 collateral offboarding mistake and Solidity and EVM internals

Capital Required Seed capital to cover gas and initial position setup

On-Chain Access Ability to interact with heco smart contracts and deploy a custom exploit contract

Protocol Analysis Identification of the exploitable vulnerability in LendHub's contract logic - root cause: protocol logic

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? Likely — with a thorough Collateral Offboarding Mistake audit checklist and test coverage

Audited by Audit Report 1, Audit Report 2, Audit Report 3 — still lost $6.0M. Prior audits don't guarantee safety, especially after post-audit code changes.

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

Verify all logic paths related to Collateral Offboarding Mistake 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.

Free Trial

Security Audit History

Audit Report 1 Report
Audit Report 2 Report
Audit Report 3 Report

Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://twitter.com/SlowMist_Team/status/1613906590574198784?s=20

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

MEDIUM

Attack Vector Collateral Offboarding Mistake
Root Cause Protocol Logic
Year 2023

Learn to Prevent the Next LendHub

The LendHub 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.

Start Free Trial Browse Attack Library