How much was lost in the Terk The Gorilla hack?

The Terk The Gorilla hack resulted in $122K in losses on July 26, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the Terk The Gorilla exploit?

The Terk The Gorilla 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.

Terk The Gorilla Hack

TOTAL LOST $122K

Low Jul 26, 2023 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1455 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

Terk The Gorilla (TERK) token's liquidity was siphoned off in a rug pull, leading to a loss of 122,440 $USD, or 65.35 ETH.

Details of the Exploit

TERK, an ERC20 token trading on Uniswap, suffered an exit scam in the form of a rug pull on July 26, 2023. The token's deployer withdrew all liquidity from the LP pool and then moved the stolen funds through multiple EOA addresses. The assets were then distributed among a range of different addresses using CoinTool.

The total estimated loss from this rug pull is 122,440 $USD, or 65.35 ETH.

Block Data Reference

Deployer's Address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x82d8eE74…fDEd92

Liquidity Removal Transaction:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x4358608c…4bd1b3

Funds Distribution Transaction:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x0a8f1862…d8bf6f

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Terk The Gorilla

Date of Incident July 26, 2023

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull

Affected Token TERK

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 Terk The Gorilla'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 Terk The Gorilla, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (July 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/1684195658339610625

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2023

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