How much was lost in the Rubick Finance hack?

The Rubick Finance hack resulted in $21K in losses on November 20, 2020.

What attack technique was used in the Rubick Finance exploit?

The Rubick Finance 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.

Rubick Finance Hack

TOTAL LOST $21K

Low Nov 20, 2020 Rugpull ethereum

Affected Chain ethereum Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1883 By amount stolen

Auditors 1 Prior security audit

Incident Overview

The token contract owner minted 1 million RBK tokens to his EOA wallet and exchanged them for 40.57 ETH on the Uniswap. The contract owner gained 10.57 ETH since he earlier added 30 ETH liquidity to the RBK-ETH pair on the Uniswap. Users, who remained with RBK tokens were unable to sell their tokens since all liquidity has been depleted.

Swap transaction:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x620e0b9b…b8869d

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Rubick Finance

Date of Incident November 20, 2020

Affected Chain(s) ethereum

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Yield Aggregator

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Algo-Stables

Affected Token RBK

Official Website rubik.finance/

Protocol Twitter/X @rubik_finance

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 ethereum smart contracts and deploy a custom exploit contract

Protocol Analysis Identification of the exploitable vulnerability in Rubick Finance's contract logic - root cause: yield aggregator

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

Audited by Audit Report 1 — still lost $21K. Prior audits don't guarantee safety, especially after post-audit code changes.

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to Rubick Finance, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (November 2020).

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.

Free Trial

Security Audit History

Audit Report 1 Report

Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://twitter.com/CaptainJackAPE/status/1328532776673366019
02
Web Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20201116122938/https://rubik.finance/

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Yield Aggregator
Year 2020

Learn to Prevent the Next Rubick Finance

The Rubick Finance hack is one of many attacks that skilled auditors are trained to detect before deployment. Master real exploit patterns and defense techniques with hands-on Web3 security training.

Start Free Trial Browse Attack Library