How much was lost in the ShabuVault hack?

The ShabuVault hack resulted in $4K in losses on November 04, 2020.

What attack technique was used in the ShabuVault exploit?

The ShabuVault 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.

ShabuVault Hack

TOTAL LOST $4K

Low Nov 04, 2020 Rugpull ethereum

Affected Chain ethereum Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1983 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull Target category

Incident Overview

At first, the contract deployer removed himself from the list of minters, at this transaction:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x497aa751…ab7016

However, he left an opportunity in the token smart contract that would have allowed him to reinstate himself as a minter. He invoked addMinter function in the following transaction:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x58bcb174…676b14

After doing this, the owner generated an additional 4K SHABU tokens and placed them in his wallet. The owner could increase the tax rate to 100% and put himself on the whitelist. The project exit scammed after the token contract owner drained liquidity, stealing 10 ETH. ShabuVault's website and social media are inaccessible.

Incident Report

Protocol / Project ShabuVault

Date of Incident November 04, 2020

Affected Chain(s) ethereum

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull

Affected Token SHABU

Official Website shabu.finance/

Protocol Twitter/X @https://t.me/shabuvault

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 ethereum smart contracts and deploy a custom exploit contract

Protocol Analysis Identification of the exploitable vulnerability in ShabuVault'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 ShabuVault, 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.

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Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://archive.ph/Cff4B
02
de.fi Analysis https://t.me/defiyield_ann/269

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2020

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