How much was lost in the Profanity Wallet Hack hack?

The Profanity Wallet Hack hack resulted in $978K in losses on September 18, 2022.

What attack technique was used in the Profanity Wallet Hack exploit?

The Profanity Wallet Hack 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.

Profanity Wallet Hack Hack

TOTAL LOST $978K

Low Sep 18, 2022 Access Control

Affected Chain 2022 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #825 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exploit/Access control Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

732 $ETH was stolen from the wallet generated by the Profanity tool. The hacker compromised the private key and transferred funds to Tornado Cash.

Details of the Exploit

Another hack occurred related to Profanity generated addresses. The hacker stole 977,550 $USD worth of assets from the vanity address and transferred them to Tornado Cash. The victim sent a transaction with the message, asking for a return of 50% of the stolen funds.

Block Data Reference

Attacker address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x9731f44b…0539b9

Transactions to Tornado Cash:

https://explorer.bitquery.io/ethereum/txs/calls?caller=0x9731f44b…0539b9&contract=0xd90e2f92…24f31b

The Transaction with the message:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xf7e7de7c…52e512

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

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Profanity Wallet Hack

Date of Incident September 18, 2022

Attack Technique Access Control

Classification Other

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exploit/Access control

Team Anonymous

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 Profanity Wallet Hack'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 Profanity Wallet Hack, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (September 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.thecoinrepublic.com/2022/09/27/about-1m-in-crypto-st…

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Access Control
Root Cause Other
Year 2022

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