How much was lost in the Sloth Climb hack?

The Sloth Climb hack resulted in $94K in losses on March 18, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the Sloth Climb exploit?

The Sloth Climb 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.

Sloth Climb Hack

TOTAL LOST $94K

Low Mar 18, 2023 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1550 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

Sloth Climb project rugpulled by EOA address which removed liquidity worth 93,531 $USD

Details of the Exploit

Sloth Climb is a BEP20 token trading on PancakeSwap. The token can't be confused with other tokens with the same symbol or name. Its liquidity pool was drained after an EOA address called removeLiquidityETH() function to withdraw all available funds in the amount of 93,531 $USD.

The attacker address took LP tokens from LockService contract, which was deployed by the token deployer. The attacker then transferred stolen funds through Stargate Bridge.

Block Data Reference

Scammer Address:

https://bscscan.com/address/0xe9b7dec3…88aa52

Vault contract:

https://bscscan.com/address/0x624bf9c8…1e2eef

Liquidity Drain Transaction:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0xf4d483a2…454c83

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Sloth Climb

Date of Incident March 18, 2023

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull

Affected Token SLOTH

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 Sloth Climb'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 Sloth Climb, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (March 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.

Free Trial

Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://twitter.com/CertiKAlert/status/1637187079850414080?s=20

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2023

Learn to Prevent the Next Sloth Climb

The Sloth Climb hack is one of many attacks that skilled auditors are trained to detect before deployment. Master real exploit patterns and defense techniques with hands-on Web3 security training.

Start Free Trial Browse Attack Library