Incident Overview
MetaPoint was exploited due to a vulnerability in the deposit function, resulting in the loss of $700K worth of USDT/POT pool tokens.
MetaPoint is a metaverse running on the Binance Smart Chain. The project was hacked through a vulnerability found within their deposit function. When a user used the deposit function, it created a new contract and deposited tokens into that contract.
The issue arose because this newly created contract had an "approve" function that gave unrestricted access to $META tokens without any restrictions or limitations. An attacker took advantage of this by deploying a malicious smart contract with unverified source code, and draining mass amounts of funds from users who had deposited $POT tokens onto their platform. The exploiter was able to steal 2,518 $BNB which is worth 803,242 $USD at current market rates.
All the stolen money transferred through TornadoCash.
Attacker address:
https://bscscan.com/address/0x0d1969a3…ba8373
Malicious Contract:
https://bscscan.com/address/0xc6e451c8…3c5d5c
Malicious Transaction Example:
https://bscscan.com/tx/0x0ed5cc9a…59c4c4
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 MetaPoint, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (April 2023).
- 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.
Free TrialRelated Attack Classes
The technique used in this hack maps to these vulnerability classes in our security curriculum:
Sources & References
Learn to Prevent the Next MetaPoint
The MetaPoint 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.