Incident Overview
Digital currency exchange Poloniex has lost 12.3% of its total bitcoin supply in an attack.
The exchange took to Bitcoin Forum on 4th March to report it had been compromised by a previously unknown vulnerability in its coding:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=499580
Poloniex owner Tristan D'Agosta:
"The hacker discovered that if you place several withdrawals all in practically the same instant, they will get processed at more or less the same time. This will result in a negative balance, but valid insertions into the database, which then get picked up by the withdrawal daemon."
D'Agosta also stated that Poloniex compensated users:
"97 BTC were taken and 97 BTC were paid back. Although the value of bitcoin fluctuated, it is not very different now from what it was in the beginning of March."
Incident Report
Protocol Information
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 Poloniex Exchange, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (March 2014).
- 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.
Free TrialFunds Recovery
Recovered
$66K
Net Loss
0
Security Audit History
- Audit Report 1 Report
Sources & References
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