How much was lost in the RESDAO hack?

The RESDAO hack resulted in $750K in losses on April 18, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the RESDAO exploit?

The RESDAO exploit utilized Rugpull. 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.

RESDAO Hack

TOTAL LOST $750K

Low Apr 18, 2023 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #901 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

RESDAO token experienced a rugpull, with the scammer removing liquidity worth 750,000 $USD.

Details of the Exploit

RESDAO is a BEP20 token trading on PancakeSwap. On 18th April, the project was subjected to a significant rug pull. The deployer removed liquidity worth 343,000 and 108,000 $USD from two transactions respectively. Also, an unknown address swapped $RESDAO tokens for $WBNB in another transaction worth approximately 67,000 $USD.

Furthermore, team members dumped their tokens in another sale transaction that netted them around 232,000 $USD.

The attacker then transferred all proceeds to Tornado Cash.

Block Data Reference

Scammer Address:

https://bscscan.com/address/0x0af22d4a…2fccad

Liquidity Removal Transactions:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x6875b4f5…8556c1

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x34a6215f…17a7bc

Swap Transaction:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x69d4ba81…e55a60

Dumping Transaction:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x30a05c23…a2dcb1

Incident Report

Protocol / Project RESDAO

Date of Incident April 18, 2023

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull

Affected Token RESDAO

Official Website daomars.com/

Protocol Twitter/X @RES_DAO

Team Anonymous

Source Code Verified On-Chain

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories

BNB Chain Ecosystem

Protocol Links

GitHub Discord Reddit

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 rugpull 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 RESDAO'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? Hard to catch — private key / OpSec failures are outside smart contract audit scope

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to RESDAO, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (April 2023).

Verify all logic paths related to Rugpull 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.

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Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://twitter.com/DeDotFiSecurity/status/1648683528203259904?s=20

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2023

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