How much was lost in the Speadefi hack?

The Speadefi hack resulted in $1.1M in losses on August 07, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the Speadefi exploit?

The Speadefi exploit utilized Access Control. 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.

Speadefi Hack

TOTAL LOST $1.1M

Medium Aug 07, 2023 Access Control

Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #783 By amount stolen

Auditors 1 Prior security audit

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

Steadefi, a Yield Aggregator on Arbitrum and Avalanche, was exploited, losing 624.63 ETH worth 1,148,309 USD.

Details of the Exploit

On Aug 07, 2023, Steadefi's multiple pools on both Arbitrum and Avalanche chains were exploited due to compromised private keys of the deployer. The attacker changed the owner of the pools to another EOA and utilized owner privileges to withdraw various assets including WBTC, WETH, and USDC. These stolen funds were bridged to the Ethereum chain via the Synapse Bridge and transferred to another EOA currently holding the accumulated ETH.

The total losses are:

- Avalanche: 333,071 USD worth of WBTC, WETH, WAVAX, and USDC

- Arbitrum: 815,238 USD worth of WBTC, WETH, and USDC

- Overall loss: 1,148,309 USD worth 624.63 ETH

Block Data Reference

Ethereum:

Attacker Address:

- https://etherscan.io/address/0x9cf71f2f…8810dc

Funds Holder:

- https://etherscan.io/address/0xE10d4a5b…0aca36

Funds Transfer Transaction:

- https://etherscan.io/tx/0x348ca019…bea277

Avalanche:

Malicious Transactions:

- https://snowtrace.io/tx/0x2425a422…f9fc71

- https://snowtrace.io/tx/0xd82491c7…178cda

- https://snowtrace.io/tx/0xd280f22d…f130eb

Arbitrum:

Malicious Transactions:

- https://arbiscan.io/tx/0xa193821c…8f85c4

- https://arbiscan.io/tx/0x5983968b…aa9cef

- https://arbiscan.io/tx/0x141119aa…ecb125

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

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Speadefi

Date of Incident August 07, 2023

Attack Technique Access Control

Classification Yield Aggregator

Primary Source View Post-Mortem #1 View Post-Mortem #2

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Yield

Official Website steadefi.com

Protocol Twitter/X @steadefi

Team Anonymous

Source Code Verified On-Chain

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories

DeFi Ethereum Ecosystem Launchpad BNB Chain Ecosystem

Protocol Links

GitHub

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 Operational-security tradecraft (phishing, malware, leaked seed phrases, or insider access) to obtain treasury signing authority

Capital Required Minimal capital - only enough to cover gas while draining the compromised accounts

On-Chain Access Valid signing authority over the compromised wallets / multisig signers, allowing direct transfer of funds or stake authorization

Target Reconnaissance Identification of Speadefi's high-value treasury accounts and the authority / multisig structure controlling them

Execution Speed Speed to drain the compromised accounts before the team detects the breach and revokes signing authority or freezes the assets

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 Access Control audit checklist and test coverage

Audited by Audit Report 1 — still lost $1.1M. Prior audits don't guarantee safety, especially after post-audit code changes.

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

Verify all logic paths related to Access Control 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/steadefi/status/1688706153080078336
02
Source 2 https://twitter.com/dedotfisecurity/status/1688670958632968192?s=46

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

MEDIUM

Attack Vector Access Control
Root Cause Yield Aggregator
Year 2023

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