Swapos Hack

TOTAL LOST $464K
Low Other

Summarize with AI

ChatGPT Perplexity Claude Grok
Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface
Recovered - No recovery reported
All-Time Rank #1030 By amount stolen
Protocol Type Exploit/Other Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

Swapos DEX was exploited on the same day it launched, with 464,026 $USD worth of assets stolen. The exploit was possible due to a vulnerable 'swap' function that allowed anyone to perform malicious swaps and

fully drain the pool.

Details of the Exploit

Swapos is a DEX running on the Ethereum chain. The project offered decentralized trading with low fees. On the day Swapos V2 Contracts were deployed, a vulnerability was discovered in their 'swap' function which allowed an attacker to execute malicious swaps and fully drain all three pools, including SWP/WETH, USDC/WETH, USDC/WBTC.

In total, 464,026 $USD worth of assets were stolen from these pools. Interestingly, the exploiter executed a transaction after a hack with a message reading "safe", suggesting they may be a whitehat hacker attempting to bring attention to this vulnerability rather than committing outright theft. Regardless of intent, funds are currently held within the attacker's contract.

Block Data Reference

Attacker address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x53fc4a4a…323ebd

Malicious transactions:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x78edc292…82d50a

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x4c55ba0b…9f1966

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xbe643ccd…b44575

Attacker message:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x4c37d83f…43f624

Malicious contract:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x2df07c05…bd1405

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Swapos
Date of Incident
Attack Technique Other
Classification Exchange (DEX)
Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exploit/Other
Affected Token SWP
Official Website swapos.org
Protocol Twitter/X @Swapos_org
Team Anonymous
Source Code Verified On-Chain

Market Context at Time of Hack

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 other 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 Swapos's contract logic - root cause: exchange (dex)
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? Likely — with a thorough Other audit checklist and test coverage

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

  • Verify all logic paths related to Other 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

Browse all hacks

These hacks used the same attack technique. Understanding the pattern helps prevent future exploits.

DeFiTuna $570K
Other
Cascade $1.3M
Other
Lumi Finance $264K
Other
Hinkal $820K
Other
AIDCToken $121K
Other
Polymarket $3.0M
Other

Learn to Prevent the Next Swapos

The Swapos 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
Recreate exploit patterns safely Free Trial