How much was lost in the Scooby Pepe hack?

The Scooby Pepe hack resulted in $238K in losses on July 21, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the Scooby Pepe exploit?

The Scooby Pepe 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.

Scooby Pepe Hack

TOTAL LOST $238K

Low Jul 21, 2023 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1235 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

Scooby Pepe project was rugpulled by its deployer who stole funds worth 237,583 $USD.

Details of the Exploit

Scooby Pepe (SCO) is a token trading on the Ethereum chain. The token deployer removed liquidity from the UniSwapV3 pool and transferred the stolen funds across a couple of EOA addresses. These addresses further distributed the stolen funds, leading to a total estimated loss of around 237,583 $USD.

Block Data Reference

Scammer Address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x8865aFfC…5Ee7a1

Liquidity Removal Transaction:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x758208aa…8ad6e2

Funds Transfer Transactions:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x3ce109e2…746be7

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xa693bb53…39df2c

Funds Distribution Transaction:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x6ddd6a6f…b13b52

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Scooby Pepe

Date of Incident July 21, 2023

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull

Affected Token SCO

Team Anonymous

Source Code Verified On-Chain

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 Scooby Pepe'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 Scooby Pepe, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (July 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/CyversAlerts/status/1682273155702747137

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2023

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