Incident Overview
The contract deployer removed liquidity at:
https://bscscan.com/tx/0x53deb909…4234c7
The contract deployer started to mint tokens several times, the example transactions:
https://bscscan.com/tx/0xbdd7c46c…a1318a
https://bscscan.com/tx/0xabc092e8…3e2626
The contract deployer sold tokens several times, the example transactions:
https://bscscan.com/tx/0xd219f3e0…9513c1
https://bscscan.com/tx/0x9b27635b…5cd918
https://bscscan.com/tx/0x80ffb26c…b2ba91
Incident Report
Protocol Information
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 Mercenary, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (January 2022).
- 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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The Mercenary 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.