LK-99 Protocol Hack

TOTAL LOST $152K
Low Rugpull

Summarize with AI

ChatGPT Perplexity Claude Grok
Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface
Recovered - No recovery reported
All-Time Rank #1389 By amount stolen
Auditors 1 Prior security audit

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

LK-99 Protocol token project was rugpulled by the deployer, removing liquidity worth 151,735 $USD from UniSwap pool.

Details of the Exploit

LK-99 Protocol is an ERC20 token trading on UniSwap. On August 3, the deployer executed a rugpull by removing liquidity from the LP pool in four separate transactions, totaling 82.78 $ETH. The stolen funds were transferred to another EOA address, and part of the funds were then transferred to other addresses and contracts.

The total funds lost in this exit scam is 151,735 $USD.

Block Data Reference

Deployer Address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0xb9581385…51556C

Funds Holder as of August 8, 2023:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x72070ebe…f30238

Liquidity Removal Transactions:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xd6d4f120…85b227

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x459296d4…f1c154

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x740eb990…547f00

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xda718746…ac55f4

Incident Report

Protocol / Project LK-99 Protocol
Date of Incident
Attack Technique Rugpull
Classification Token
Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Yield
Affected Token LK99
Official Website www.lake.inc/
Protocol Twitter/X @lake_protocol
Team Anonymous
Source Code Verified On-Chain

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories
Solana Ecosystem
Protocol Links
Discord

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 LK-99 Protocol'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
Audited by Audit Report 1 — still lost $152K. Prior audits don't guarantee safety, especially after post-audit code changes.

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to LK-99 Protocol, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (August 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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Security Audit History

Sources & References

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