How much was lost in the Saxon James Musk hack?

The Saxon James Musk hack resulted in $26K in losses on August 07, 2022.

What attack technique was used in the Saxon James Musk exploit?

The Saxon James Musk 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.

Saxon James Musk Hack

TOTAL LOST $26K

Low Aug 07, 2022 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2022 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1856 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

The $SJMUSK token was rugpulled by its team. The team created an SJMUSK/WBNB pair to make their token tradable and dumped the $SJMUSK token for a profit of $25.5k.

Scam Alert

Projects $SJMUSK and $AI DAY: Part 2 are related. The scammer addresses involved in this rugpulls:

1) https://bscscan.com/address/0x53acdc0a…e1287f

2) https://bscscan.com/address/0xc37f9554…177f03

This team has many other projects on which they scam people. Stay safe out there!

Details of the Exploit

The creator of the token deployed the contract to the network, where 7B tokens were sent to the contract that created a pair of liquidity on PancakeSwap:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0xbc4d09bd…bfe35e

Then a BNB/SJMUSK pair was created through the contract, from 7B $SJMUSK and 100 $BNB:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x36ecd286…212a08

When investors invested enough funds in the token, they exchanged https://bscscan.com/tx/0x7bd05f4b…8b2098

then the funds were sent further to other addresses in order to continue scamming people.

Block Data Reference

Scammer addresses:

- Scammer address (A), token creator: https://bscscan.com/address/0x53aCDc0a…E1287F

Transactions:

- Creating lp: https://bscscan.com/tx/https://bscscan.com/tx/0x36ecd286…212a08

- Swapping $SJMUSK to $BNB taking profit, and destructing contracts: https://bscscan.com/tx/0x7bd05f4b…8b2098

Contracts:

Liquidity creator: https://bscscan.com/address/0x18879682…8c0b03

Token contract: https://bscscan.com/address/0xe0b9d414…96b093

Contract 3: https://bscscan.com/address/0x47e1903e…dc8494

Smart-Contract Abilities

+ It is possible to send $BNB to the address of the token, which will be sent to the address of the token deployer.

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Saxon James Musk

Date of Incident August 07, 2022

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull

Affected Token SJMUSK

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 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 Saxon James Musk'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 Saxon James Musk, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (August 2022).

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://dexscreener.com/bsc/0x353e556d3c745f4193d18cb7dec7f084900fbc52

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2022

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