Incident Overview
Vulnerability in the hosting service allowed the hacker to change the DNS settings in such a way that the original router address was replaced with a fake one. While the QuickSwap team discovered the problem, the hacker managed to get more than $100k.
QuickSwap is a decentralized exchange that runs on the Polygon Network in order to provide faster and cheaper transactions on Ethereum.
Using the security vulnerability in the hosting service GoDaddy, hacker gained control of the DeFi domain of the QuickSwap platform and modified the external interface to redirect funds traded on the platforms to a wallet controlled by the attacker.
When the community did the exchanges through the website, they noticed that the funds were not returned to their wallets and began actively writing about it in social networks. Team members noticed this and issued a warning post on Twitter. The QuickSwap team managed to restore the correct operation of their website, but they lost confidence in GoDaddy. Immediately after the problem was fixed, the team turned to their community to find the best hosting service for QuickSwap.
At the moment, QuickSwap is functioning smoothly, on a new hosting server.
Involved addresses:
- Hacker address: https://polygonscan.com/address/0x83927acf…da0c5d
0x81d3ec77438b4e99aa99ba25b1dbc3fea317fe3b0x81d3ec77438b4e99aa99ba25b1dbc3fea317fe3b
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 QuickSwap, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (May 2022).
- 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
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