How much was lost in the Plankton Plankton hack?

The Plankton Plankton hack resulted in $288K in losses on August 06, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the Plankton Plankton exploit?

The Plankton Plankton 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.

Plankton Plankton Hack

TOTAL LOST $288K

Low Aug 06, 2023 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1162 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

Plankton Plankton token project was rugpulled by the deployer, removing liquidity worth 288,021 $USD from UniSwap pool.

Details of the Exploit

Plankton Plankton (PLANK) is an ERC20 token trading on UniSwap. On August 6, the deployer executed a rugpull by removing liquidity from the LP pool in a single transaction, totaling 155.27 $ETH. The stolen funds were transferred to another EOA address and then distributed between multiple addresses via CoinTool.

Part of the stolen funds were also laundered through TornadoCash, an anonymity-focused service on the Ethereum network. The total funds lost in this exit scam is 288,021 $USD.

Block Data Reference

Deployer Address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x7bAc42Fd…c2d70e

Scammer Address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x85e6e67e…c1f8c0

Liquidity Removal Transaction:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x0fa4f9d1…e9e09e

TornadoCash Deposit Transaction:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xcb3cdeae…300534

CoinTool Transfer Transaction:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x1c287c72…079705

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Plankton Plankton

Date of Incident August 06, 2023

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull

Affected Token PLANK

Official Website aaahhm.meme/

Protocol Twitter/X @AAAHHM_SOL

Team Anonymous

Source Code Verified On-Chain

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories

AI & Big Data Memes Solana Ecosystem AI Memes Pump Fun Ecosystem

Protocol Links

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 smart contracts and deploy a custom exploit contract

Protocol Analysis Identification of the exploitable vulnerability in Plankton Plankton'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 Plankton Plankton, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (August 2023).

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/cyversalerts/status/1688858309997002753?s=46

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2023

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