How much was lost in the PoW ETH hack?

The PoW ETH hack resulted in $256K in losses on September 15, 2022.

What attack technique was used in the PoW ETH exploit?

The PoW ETH exploit utilized Phishing. 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.

PoW ETH Hack

TOTAL LOST $256K

Low Sep 15, 2022 Phishing

Affected Chain 2022 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1201 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exploit/Phishing Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

Fake Ethereum PoW token was exploited on the Binance chain, causing of loss more than 255,780 $USD of user's funds in $WETH

Details of the Exploit

PoW ETH is a BEP20 standard token, which is not related to the original $ETH or $ETHW. The scammer created ETHW/WETH pair and added liquidity. The scammer had more than 95% token supply in balance and an opportunity to mint an infinite amount of fake $ETHW.

After users began trading on various DEX'es the scammer used the remaining $ETHW tokens to drain $WETH. The profit of the scammer reached 180 $WETH or $255,780 in dollar terms.

Block Data Reference

Scammer addresses:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x014fa682…04f269

https://etherscan.io/address/0x6001b9ff…f29204

Token pair:

https://etherscan.io/token/0xf64af470…f72aff

Draining transactions:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xf1b564b1…c0a92d

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x242595a1…994704

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x8f247284…661c6b

This is classified as a Phishing Attacks . Compare similar hacks →

Incident Report

Protocol / Project PoW ETH

Date of Incident September 15, 2022

Attack Technique Phishing

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exploit/Phishing

Affected Token ETHW

Official Website weth.io/

Team Anonymous

Source Code Verified On-Chain

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories

DeFi Privacy Ethereum Ecosystem Waves Ecosystem Avalanche Ecosystem Solana Ecosystem Wrapped Tokens Polygon 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 phishing 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 PoW ETH'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? Likely — with a thorough Phishing audit checklist and test coverage

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

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

Phishing Attacks

Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://twitter.com/CertiKAlert/status/1570274860932419584

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Phishing
Root Cause Token
Year 2022

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