How much was lost in the SOMESING hack?

The SOMESING hack resulted in $167K in losses on October 20, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the SOMESING exploit?

The SOMESING 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.

SOMESING Hack

TOTAL LOST $167K

Low Oct 20, 2023 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1363 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

SSX token project was rugpulled by a scammer, causing a loss of 166,715 USD by depleting the PancakeSwap liquidity pool.

Details of the Exploit

SSX is a BEP20 token trading on PancakeSwap. On Oct 20, 2023, the scammer minted a significantly larger number of tokens and then rugpulled by selling 1,000,000,000,000,000 SSX, completely depleting the liquidity pool. It is assumed that the deployer created the contract in this way precisely so that it could later be hacked.

The stolen funds were transferred to another EOA and distributed between multiple addresses. Previously, the Deployer and scammer sent funds from Binance to their addresses. The total funds lost in this exit scam is 166,715 USD worth 792.21 WBNB.

Block Data Reference

Deployer Address:

https://bscscan.com/address/0x94Ac38CF…1b9610

Scammer Addresses:

https://bscscan.com/address/0x56ee7a79…584d88

https://bscscan.com/address/0x3f04768E…c704ED

Tokens Sell Transaction:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x27a64f0c…75e454

Incident Report

Protocol / Project SOMESING

Date of Incident October 20, 2023

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull

Affected Token SSX

Official Website somesing.io

Protocol Twitter/X @somesinglovers

Team Anonymous

Source Code Verified On-Chain

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories

Klaytn Ecosystem

Protocol Links

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 SOMESING'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 SOMESING, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (October 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/PeckShieldAlert/status/1715272345362018788

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2023

Learn to Prevent the Next SOMESING

The SOMESING 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