How much was lost in the Orbit Swap hack?

The Orbit Swap hack resulted in $36K in losses on February 08, 2021.

What attack technique was used in the Orbit Swap exploit?

The Orbit Swap exploit utilized Rugpull. 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.

Orbit Swap Hack

TOTAL LOST $36K

Low Feb 08, 2021 Rugpull binance

Affected Chain binance Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1790 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Dexs Target category

Incident Overview

The contract deployer minted tokens onto his wallet:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x26313743…59d30d

The initial liquidity was added by the contract deployer at:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0xe57802a3…b4ba9c

The contract deployer has sold tokens in multiple transactions:

https://bscscan.com/tokentxns?a=0xdd313329…1c77bf

Liquidity was removed by the contract deployer at:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x32b63293…f1d229

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Orbit Swap

Date of Incident February 08, 2021

Affected Chain(s) binance

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Dexs

Affected Token ORBIT

Official Website orbitswap.com

Protocol Twitter/X @rabbitswapxyz

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 rugpull and Solidity and EVM internals

Capital Required Seed capital to cover gas and initial position setup

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

Protocol Analysis Identification of the exploitable vulnerability in Orbit Swap's contract logic - root cause: token

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? Hard to catch — private key / OpSec failures are outside smart contract audit scope

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to Orbit Swap, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (February 2021).

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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Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://twitter.com/coinprof/status/1359443409602301953
02
Web Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20210207141929/https://orbitswap.com/

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2021

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