How much was lost in the Lucky Star hack?

The Lucky Star hack resulted in $297K in losses on March 22, 2024.

What attack technique was used in the Lucky Star exploit?

The Lucky Star exploit utilized Access Control. 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.

Lucky Star Hack

TOTAL LOST $297K

Low Mar 22, 2024 Access Control

Affected Chain 2024 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1131 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exploit/Access control Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

The Access control issue over the Lucky Star contract led to the approved tokens draining.

Details of the Exploit

A security breach occurred with Lucky Star contracts, where the deployer transferred ownership of the proxy admin to a malicious EOA. This EOA then upgraded to a new implementation with the unverified source code, exploiting users who had previously approved the proxy admin. As a result, approximately $297k worth of LSC and USDT tokens were stolen.

Block Data Reference

Deployer:

https://bscscan.com/address/0xcde285a5…e4cd01

Transfer ownership:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0xbb2e8abb…7e8d61

Malicious upgrade:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0xb5e79163…8df523

Proxy admin:

https://bscscan.com/address/0x6b2ee199…2b80ca

Proxy contract:

https://bscscan.com/address/0x077e1E0c…E7c9eb#code

Malicious implementation: https://bscscan.com/address/0x32e484A1…4222A9#code

This is classified as a Access Control Attacks . Compare similar hacks →

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Lucky Star

Date of Incident March 22, 2024

Attack Technique Access Control

Classification Other

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exploit/Access control

Affected Token LCS

Official Website www.lucky-star.fun/

Team Anonymous

Source Code Unverified

Market Context at Time of Hack

Protocol Links

GitHub

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 Operational-security tradecraft (phishing, malware, leaked seed phrases, or insider access) to obtain treasury signing authority

Capital Required Minimal capital - only enough to cover gas while draining the compromised accounts

On-Chain Access Valid signing authority over the compromised wallets / multisig signers, allowing direct transfer of funds or stake authorization

Target Reconnaissance Identification of Lucky Star's high-value treasury accounts and the authority / multisig structure controlling them

Execution Speed Speed to drain the compromised accounts before the team detects the breach and revokes signing authority or freezes the assets

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 Access Control audit checklist and test coverage

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to Lucky Star, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (March 2024).

Verify all logic paths related to Access Control are guarded by proper access controls and input validation - see the Access Control 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 Access Control Attacks examples →

Access Control Attacks

Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://twitter.com/CertiKAlert/status/1771220881261355512

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Access Control
Root Cause Other
Year 2024

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