How much was lost in the StarMan hack?

The StarMan hack resulted in $53K in losses on June 02, 2022.

What attack technique was used in the StarMan exploit?

The StarMan 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.

StarMan Hack

TOTAL LOST $53K

Low Jun 02, 2022 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2022 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1703 By amount stolen

Auditors 1 Prior security audit

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

The $StarMan token was rugpulled by its team. The team created an StarMan/WBNB pair to make their token tradable and dumped the $StarMan token for a profit of 173.39 $BNB.

Details of the Exploit

The creator of the token deployed the contract to the BNB network, where 10B tokens were sent to him.

Then he created a StarMan/BNB pair, 3B $StarMan and 300 $BNB:

1) https://bscscan.com/tx/0x13c8a4dc…ebc429

2) https://bscscan.com/tx/0x8eff7526…f0b933

After the community invested enough funds into the token, he removed lp, taking a profit of 173 $BNB:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0xe2356bff…57e265

Stolen funds were transferred to scammer address (B): https://bscscan.com/tx/0xfb3fb8ee…f53110

Then the scammer address (B) laundered money through the Tornado.cash.

Block Data Reference

Involved addresses:

- Scammer address (A), token creator: https://bscscan.com/address/0xcbf5ac38…afaa89

- Scammer address (B): https://bscscan.com/address/0xcffe7b00…64bd44

Transactions:

- Token creation: https://bscscan.com/tx/0x808b6783…9cfb2f

- Creating lp:

1) https://bscscan.com/tx/0x8eff7526…f0b933

2) https://bscscan.com/tx/0x13c8a4dc…ebc429

- Remove lp: https://bscscan.com/tx/0xe2356bff…57e265

Smart-Contract Abilities

- Owner can open trading

- Hidden mechanism for pausing transfers openTrading() for non whitelisted users

- Hidden whitelist roles (_synced)

Incident Report

Protocol / Project StarMan

Date of Incident June 02, 2022

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

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

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Dexs

Affected Token StarMan

Protocol Twitter/X @StarbankFinance

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 StarMan'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

Audited by Audit Report 1 — still lost $53K. Prior audits don't guarantee safety, especially after post-audit code changes.

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to StarMan, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (June 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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Security Audit History

Audit Report 1 Report

Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://v2.tokeninsight.com/en/news/starman-on-bnb-chain-appeare…
02
Source 2 https://desk.lsr.finance/asset/starman-star-man/

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2022

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