How much was lost in the Stanley the Bugman hack?

The Stanley the Bugman hack resulted in $114K in losses on October 03, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the Stanley the Bugman exploit?

The Stanley the Bugman 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.

Stanley the Bugman Hack

TOTAL LOST $114K

Low Oct 03, 2023 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1483 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

BUGMAN token rugpulled by deployer, removing 159,039 USD worth of liquidity from UniSwap pool, funds partially laundered through TornadoCash.

Details of the Exploit

BUGMAN, an ERC20 token trading on UniSwap, experienced an exit scam on Oct 03, 2023. The deployer removed 96,83 WETH, equivalent to 159,039 USD, from the liquidity pool. Approximately 18 hours passed between adding and removing liquidity.

Half of the stolen funds were transferred to another EOA and then deposited into TornadoCash. The remaining half of the funds, still worth 49,67 ETH, are held in the scammer's wallet.

Block Data Reference

Deployer Address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x0acc2e47…26cE79

Scammer Address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0xe697EAb7…d4Ac8a

Liquidity Removal Transaction:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x8fc1a474…8b0a8f

Funds Holder as of Oct 3, 2023:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x1ca57014…A06538

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Stanley the Bugman

Date of Incident October 03, 2023

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull

Affected Token BUGMAN

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 Stanley the Bugman'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 Stanley the Bugman, 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.

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Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://twitter.com/CyversAlerts/status/1709134563455209507

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2023

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