How much was lost in the SharedStake hack?

The SharedStake hack resulted in $175K in losses on September 01, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the SharedStake exploit?

The SharedStake exploit utilized Ownership Override Attack. 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.

SharedStake Hack

TOTAL LOST $175K

Low Sep 01, 2023 Ownership Override Attack ethereum

Affected Chain ethereum Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1318 By amount stolen

Auditors 1 Prior security audit

Incident Overview

Liquid staking provider.

This is classified as a Access Control Attacks . Compare similar hacks →

Incident Report

Protocol / Project SharedStake

Date of Incident September 01, 2023

Affected Chain(s) ethereum

Attack Technique Ownership Override Attack

Classification Protocol Logic

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Liquid Staking

Official Website www.sharedstake.org/

Protocol Twitter/X @SharedStakeNews

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories

Ethereum Ecosystem BNB Chain Ecosystem

Protocol Links

GitHub Reddit

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 ownership override attack 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 SharedStake's contract logic - root cause: protocol logic

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? Likely — with a thorough Ownership Override Attack audit checklist and test coverage

Audited by Audit Report 1 — still lost $175K. Prior audits don't guarantee safety, especially after post-audit code changes.

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to SharedStake, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (September 2023).

Verify all logic paths related to Ownership Override Attack are guarded by proper access controls and input validation - see the Access Control Attacks attack class for patterns
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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Security Audit History

Audit Report 1 Report

Related Attack Classes

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

See all Access Control Attacks examples →

Access Control Attacks

Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://twitter.com/spreekaway/status/1697612239929246022

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Ownership Override Attack
Root Cause Protocol Logic
Year 2023

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