Link Drainer Hack

TOTAL LOST $4.2M
Medium Phishing
ChatGPT Perplexity Claude Grok
Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface
Recovered - No recovery reported
All-Time Rank #468 By amount stolen
Protocol Type Exploit/Phishing Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

Another victim on Ethereum chain lost 4,232,690 USD worth of LINK tokens due to a phishing attack on Dec 28, 2023.

Details of the Exploit

The victim was targeted in a phishing attack on the Ethereum network, resulting in the loss of 275,700 LINK tokens worth approximately 4,232,690 USD. The attacker used two separate transactions to steal the funds, which were then transferred to two different addresses. One of these addresses is labeled "PinkDrainer" on Etherscan.io.

After obtaining the stolen tokens, the attacker swapped them on a decentralized exchange (DEX) and distributed the funds to several externally owned accounts (EOAs).

Block Data Reference

Victim Address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0xea69653e…8dd4cf

Attacker Addresses:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x8FaE6d79…D2E70e

https://etherscan.io/address/0x9fA7bB75…f2C726

Malicious Transactions:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x70026eae…d82a05

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x15bc5516…4a7a69

This is classified as a Phishing Attacks . Compare similar hacks →

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Link Drainer
Date of Incident
Attack Technique Phishing
Classification Other
Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exploit/Phishing
Team Anonymous
Source Code Unverified

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 phishing 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 Link Drainer's contract logic - root cause: other
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 Phishing audit checklist and test coverage

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

  • Verify all logic paths related to Phishing are guarded by proper access controls and input validation - see the Phishing 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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Related Attack Classes

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

See all Phishing Attacks examples →

Phishing Attacks

Sources & References

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