How much was lost in the MooCakeCTX hack?

The MooCakeCTX hack resulted in $123K in losses on November 06, 2022.

What attack technique was used in the MooCakeCTX exploit?

The MooCakeCTX exploit utilized Flash Loan Attack. 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.

MooCakeCTX Hack

TOTAL LOST $123K

Low Nov 06, 2022 Flash Loan Attack

Affected Chain 2022 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1453 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exploit/Flash Loan Attack Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

MooCakeCTX was exploited via a flash loan attack. The attacker's profit reached 122,960 $USD.

Details of the Exploit

MooCakeCTX is a yield protocol on the Binance Chain. The protocol supports $CAKE deposits for $mooCakeCTX. The attacker took 400,000 $BUSD as a flash loan and exploited the protocol's smart contract for 424 $BNB.

The attacker's malicious smart contract bypassed isContract() function check by performing actions on the constructor and got rewards as $mooCakeCTX tokens after depositing $CAKE tokens. The flash loan was paid back after repeating previous actions multiple times and the exploiter took a profit of 424 $BNB. All the stolen funds were transferred to several EOA addresses in 4 transactions.

Block Data Reference

Attacker address:

https://bscscan.com/address/0x35700c4a…0facd5

Malicious contract:

https://bscscan.com/address/0x71ac864f…10467c

Malicious transaction:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x03d36346…d2ec8e

Funds transfer transactions:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x963d1ff2…9cad6a

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x602c2220…87ba45

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x44922e96…9ec913

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x58096e41…cca119

This is classified as a Flash Loans Attacks . Compare similar hacks →

Incident Report

Protocol / Project MooCakeCTX

Date of Incident November 06, 2022

Attack Technique Flash Loan Attack

Classification Token,Other

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exploit/Flash Loan Attack

Affected Token MooCakeCTX

Team Anonymous

Source Code Verified On-Chain

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 flash loan attack and Solidity and EVM internals

Capital Required Flash loan capital (borrowed atomically, zero upfront cost)

On-Chain Access Ability to interact with smart contracts and deploy a custom exploit contract

Protocol Analysis Identification of the exploitable vulnerability in MooCakeCTX's contract logic - root cause: token,other

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? Yes — skilled auditors routinely flag Flash Loan Attack vulnerabilities in code review

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to MooCakeCTX, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (November 2022).

Verify all logic paths related to Flash Loan Attack are guarded by proper access controls and input validation - see the Flash Loans 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 Flash Loans Attacks examples →

Flash Loans Attacks

Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://twitter.com/beosinalert/status/1589501207181393920?s=46&…

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Flash Loan Attack
Root Cause Token,Other
Year 2022

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