How much was lost in the Strong Finance hack?

The Strong Finance hack resulted in $61K in losses on December 06, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the Strong Finance exploit?

The Strong Finance 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.

Strong Finance Hack

TOTAL LOST $61K

Low Dec 06, 2023 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1668 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Dexs Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

STRONG token rugpulled by scammer, removing liquidity worth 61,081 USD from UniSwap.

Details of the Exploit

STRONG is an ERC20 token trading on UniSwap. On Dec 6, 2023, the deployer executed a rugpull by removing liquidity from the LP pool. The scammer removed 26.74 WETH, equivalent to 61,081 USD.

The stolen funds were transferred to another EOA address and then withdrawn through a chain of several addresses, ultimately reaching the Binance exchange.

Block Data Reference

Deployer Address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0xb112034a…eE4178

Scammer Address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x82a4f9c0…CAFfeF

Liquidity Removal Transaction:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x8f06eb0b…5af2cb

Binance Withdrawn Transactions:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x8f387cda…cb1e2e

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x95fec935…fa7156

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Strong Finance

Date of Incident December 06, 2023

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Dexs

Affected Token STRONG

Official Website www.stronghands.info

Protocol Twitter/X @Sterling_Fi

Team Anonymous

Source Code Verified On-Chain

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories

BNB Chain Ecosystem

Protocol Links

GitHub Discord Reddit Telegram

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 Strong Finance'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 Strong Finance, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (December 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/PeckShieldAlert/status/1732252704205156573?s=20

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2023

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