Multichain Hack

TOTAL LOST $2.7M
Medium Other

Summarize with AI

ChatGPT Perplexity Claude Grok
Affected Chain 2022 Incident surface
Recovered $2.5M 92.5% returned
All-Time Rank #577 By amount stolen
Auditors 4 Prior security audits

Incident Overview

On Jan 18, Multichain urged users to remove approvals for six cross-chain tokens (WETH, PERI, OMT, WBNB, MATIC, AVAX), while the users haven’t revoked WETH approval were exploited (WETH 602.69 total affected).

The whitehat hacker returned 259 ETH at:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x2bbd6a6a…1ee7a9

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Multichain
Date of Incident
Attack Technique Other
Classification Bridge
Primary Source View Post-Mortem #1 View Post-Mortem #2 View Post-Mortem #3

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Bridge
Official Website multichain.org/
Protocol Twitter/X @MultichainOrg
Team Anonymous
Source Code Unverified

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories
Ethereum Ecosystem Three Arrows Capital Portfolio Polygon Ecosystem Fantom Ecosystem Arbitrum Ecosystem Moonriver Ecosystem BNB Chain Ecosystem Circle Ventures Portfolio
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 Deep understanding of other and Solidity and EVM internals
Capital Required Seed capital to cover gas and initial position setup
On-Chain Access Ability to interact with smart contracts and deploy a custom exploit contract
Protocol Analysis Identification of the exploitable vulnerability in Multichain's contract logic - root cause: bridge
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? Likely — with a thorough Other audit checklist and test coverage
Audited by Audit Report 1, Audit Report 2, Audit Report 3, Audit Report 4 — still lost $2.7M. Prior audits don't guarantee safety, especially after post-audit code changes.

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

  • 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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Funds Recovery

92.5%

Recovered

$2.5M

Net Loss

204480

Security Audit History

Sources & References

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