How much was lost in the Snake Eyes hack?

The Snake Eyes hack resulted in $117K in losses on August 16, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the Snake Eyes exploit?

The Snake Eyes 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.

Snake Eyes Hack

TOTAL LOST $117K

Low Aug 16, 2023 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1475 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

Snake Eyes suffered a rugpull on Aug 16, 2023, causing a loss of 117,292 $USD (72.1 $ETH).

Details of the Exploit

Snake Eyes (SNAKE), an ERC20 token trading on UniSwap, was exploited through an exitscam on Aug 16, 2023. The deployer removed the liquidity from the LP pool and transferred the stolen funds through several EOA addresses. A significant portion of the funds was deposited into TornadoCash, while a small portion (17 $ETH) remains at one of the scammer's EOAs.

Block Data Reference

- Deployer Address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x95c9bB9C…33797f

- Scammer Address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0xc93a7d0f…2a3c72

- Funds Holder as of August 22, 2023:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x50446734…3b8172

- Liquidity Removal Transaction:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xf7842852…54ecdd

- Tornado Cash Transaction:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xafc031a2…2b77d4

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Snake Eyes

Date of Incident August 16, 2023

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull

Affected Token SNAKE

Team Anonymous

Source Code Verified On-Chain

Market Context at Time of Hack

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 Snake Eyes'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 Snake Eyes, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (August 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.

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Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://twitter.com/CertiKAlert/status/1693323464311226468?s=20

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2023

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