How much was lost in the PREMINT | NFT hack?

The PREMINT | NFT hack resulted in $375K in losses on July 17, 2022.

What attack technique was used in the PREMINT | NFT exploit?

The PREMINT | NFT exploit utilized Access Control. 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.

PREMINT | NFT Hack

TOTAL LOST $375K

Low Jul 17, 2022 Access Control

Affected Chain 2022 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1059 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exploit/Access control Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

Users of the PREMINT NFT platform transferred approval rights to the hacker instead of logging into the platform due to a malicious code, uploaded by the hacker. $375k worth of NFT's were stolen by the hacker.

Details of the Exploit

PREMINT is an NFT service intended to help project creators build access lists for new NFT projects based on various qualifications.

The PREMINT's platform website was attacked by a hacker utilizing a malicious JavaScript code.

When users tried to log into the platform, they instead signed over all approvals of their wallet to the attacker. The attacker proceeded to exploit affected wallets and send NFTs out of famous collections such as Murakami.Flowers, Kaiju Kingz and Azuki to a variety of his own wallets. Below a number of transaction made by the attacker:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xc705b6ad…ab0662

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x81d49fc3…ba25a8

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x78607d70…ffb4ab

A majority of the funds were aggregated in this wallet (https://etherscan.io/address/0x99aeb028…826bf4). As the time of this writing 284 $ETH have been laundered through Tornado.Cash.

Block Data Reference

Attackers addresses:

https://etherscan.io/address/0xaab00f61…f281f3

https://etherscan.io/txs?a=0x4499bac5…aafeef

https://etherscan.io/address/0x4ed07767…d06ca1

https://etherscan.io/address/0x28733543…2bb49d

https://etherscan.io/address/0x0C979780…7418d0

https://etherscan.io/address/0x99aeb028…826bf4

This is classified as a Access Control Attacks . Compare similar hacks →

Incident Report

Protocol / Project PREMINT | NFT

Date of Incident July 17, 2022

Attack Technique Access Control

Classification NFT

Primary Source View Post-Mortem #1 View Post-Mortem #2

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exploit/Access control

Official Website www.premint.xyz/

Protocol Twitter/X @PREMINT_NFT

Team Public / Doxxed

Source Code Unverified

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 Operational-security tradecraft (phishing, malware, leaked seed phrases, or insider access) to obtain treasury signing authority

Capital Required Minimal capital - only enough to cover gas while draining the compromised accounts

On-Chain Access Valid signing authority over the compromised wallets / multisig signers, allowing direct transfer of funds or stake authorization

Target Reconnaissance Identification of PREMINT | NFT's high-value treasury accounts and the authority / multisig structure controlling them

Execution Speed Speed to drain the compromised accounts before the team detects the breach and revokes signing authority or freezes the assets

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 Access Control audit checklist and test coverage

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

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

Access Control Attacks

Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://www.certik.com/resources/blog/77oaazrsx1mewnraJePYQI-pre…
02
Source 2 https://cybernews.com/crypto/malicious-hackers-steal-375k-from-p…
03
Web Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20220701000019/https://www.premint.xyz/

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Access Control
Root Cause NFT
Year 2022

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