Incident Overview
Maplechange announced the hack, which took place one day after it had conducted “maintenance” to revamp its website. It claimed that “due to a bug, some people have managed to withdraw all the funds” it had been holding. The exchange said it had launched a “thorough investigation” and insisted that it couldn’t offer refunds to customers until it had concluded its probe.
“We are extremely sorry that it has to come to end like this,” it added.
Incident Report
Protocol Information
Market Context at Time of Hack
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.
What Auditors Should Check
If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to MapleChange, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (October 2018).
- Verify all logic paths related to Other 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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Learn to Prevent the Next MapleChange
The MapleChange 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.