How much was lost in the SLS hack?

The SLS hack resulted in $41K in losses on October 03, 2022.

What attack technique was used in the SLS exploit?

The SLS 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.

SLS Hack

TOTAL LOST $41K

Low Oct 03, 2022 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2022 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1762 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

SLS project's token GSLS lost the price by more than 85% after the token deployer-related EOA address drained liquidity. The scammer made a profit of 41,122 $USD.

Details of the Exploit

GSLS is the BEP20 token trading on PancakeSwap. On 3rd October, the token deployer sent 40,000 $GSLS to EOA address. The address received 25,000 $BUSD from another address and added liquidity with them and received $GSLS to the liquidity pool on PancakeSwap.

Consequently, the scammer made many trades with small amounts at the beginning. When the initial token holder sent 360,000 $GSLS to the scammer, the tokens were sold immediately, which leads to the token price dump and liquidity draining for the total amount of 41,122 $BUSD.

Block Data Reference

Scammer address:

https://bscscan.com/address/0x89cc4469…f421ab

Token deployer:

https://bscscan.com/address/0xf60910b4…bca05d

Initial token holder:

https://bscscan.com/address/0xaa06eec2…9f2f7a

Liquidity pool:

https://bscscan.com/address/0x84f9d526…3DDfF3

Incident Report

Protocol / Project SLS

Date of Incident October 03, 2022

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull

Affected Token GSLS

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 smart contracts and deploy a custom exploit contract

Protocol Analysis Identification of the exploitable vulnerability in SLS'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 SLS, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (October 2022).

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/CertiKAlert/status/1576794058202271745

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2022

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