How much was lost in the Scream hack?

The Scream hack resulted in $35.0M in losses on May 15, 2022.

What attack technique was used in the Scream exploit?

The Scream exploit utilized Oracle Issue. 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.

Scream Hack

TOTAL LOST $35.0M

High #159 All-Time May 15, 2022 Oracle Issue

Affected Chain 2022 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #159 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Lending Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

Scream has incurred 35,000,000 $USD in bad debt after the $FUSD and $DEI stablecoins lost their peg to $USD

Details of the Exploit

Scream is a lending and borrowing protocol running on the Fantom blockchain. After $FUSD and $DEI tokens lost their peg to $USD, whales took advantage of this situation and deposited large amounts of $FUSD and $DEI to drain other stablecoins like $FUSDT, $FRAX, $DAI, $MIM and $USDC from the platforms smart contract.

The Lending Protocol also lost roughly 50% of the total value locked on the platform.

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This is classified as a Oracle Manipulation & Price Manipulation . Compare similar hacks →

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Scream

Date of Incident May 15, 2022

Attack Technique Oracle Issue

Classification Stablecoin,Borrowing and Lending

Primary Source View Post-Mortem #1 View Post-Mortem #2

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Lending

Affected Token Scream

Official Website scream.sh/

Protocol Twitter/X @Screamdotsh

Team Anonymous

Source Code Unverified

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories

Platform AI & Big Data Distributed Computing Filesharing IoT Ethereum Ecosystem Fabric Ventures Portfolio Polygon Ecosystem

Protocol Links

GitHub Discord

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 oracle issue 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 Scream's contract logic - root cause: stablecoin,borrowing and lending

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? Yes — skilled auditors routinely flag Oracle Issue vulnerabilities in code review

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to Scream, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (May 2022).

Verify all logic paths related to Oracle Issue are guarded by proper access controls and input validation - see the Oracle Manipulation & Price Manipulation attack class for patterns
Audit oracle price feeds for manipulation risks - ensure time-weighted average prices (TWAPs) or multi-source aggregators are used, not spot prices
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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Related Attack Classes

The technique used in this hack maps to these vulnerability classes in our security curriculum:

See all Oracle Manipulation & Price Manipulation examples →

Oracle Manipulation & Price Manipulation

Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://archive.is/XidOB
02
Source 2 https://defillama.com/protocol/scream

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

HIGH

Attack Vector Oracle Issue
Root Cause Stablecoin,Borrowing and Lending
Year 2022

Learn to Prevent the Next Scream

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