SwilrLend Hack

TOTAL LOST $460K
Low Rugpull

Summarize with AI

ChatGPT Perplexity Claude Grok
Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface
Recovered - No recovery reported
All-Time Rank #1034 By amount stolen
Protocol Type Lending Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

SwirlLend protocol was exploited in a rugpull; 460,317 $USD worth of 253.2 $ETH were stolen across Linea and Base chains on Aug 16, 2023.

Details of the Exploit

SwirlLend, a decentralized lending and borrowing protocol running on Base and Linea chains, fell victim to a rugpull attack. The scammer bridged 253.2 $ETH (worth 460,317 $USD) from Linea and Base chains to the Ethereum chain via Orbiter Finance's Bridge. The stolen funds were then deposited into TornadoCash.

Specifically, the losses were 163,620 $USD worth 90 $ETH on Linea Chain and 296,697 $USD worth 163.2 $ETH on Base chain. The official Twitter, Telegram, Discord, and Website were shutdown shortly after the incident.

Block Data Reference

- Scammer Address:

https://basescan.org/address/0x26f6d954…ce5ce7

- Bridging Transaction:

https://basescan.org/tx/0x34256b33…e81fcf

- Scammer Address:

https://explorer.linea.build/address/0x26f6d954…ce5ce7

- Scammer Address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x26f6d954…ce5ce7

- Bridged Transactions:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x827fec90…27161b

- TornadoCash Deposit Transaction:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x9bcfe25e…5ca938

Incident Report

Protocol / Project SwilrLend
Date of Incident
Attack Technique Rugpull
Classification Borrowing and Lending
Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Lending
Official Website suilend.fi/
Protocol Twitter/X @SwirlLend
Team Anonymous
Source Code Unverified

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories
DeFi Lending & Borrowing Sui Ecosystem MoveVM (MVM)
Protocol Links
Discord

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 SwilrLend's contract logic - root cause: borrowing and lending
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 SwilrLend, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (August 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.

Free Trial

Sources & References

Browse all hacks

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

Pepe Trump $38K
Rugpull
NYC Memecoin $3.4M
Rugpull
OracleBNB $80K
Rugpull
Aqua $4.7M
Rugpull
Fake LAYER $465K
Rugpull
Gifto $10.0M
Rugpull

Learn to Prevent the Next SwilrLend

The SwilrLend 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