How much was lost in the To the Moon hack?

The To the Moon hack resulted in $107K in losses on November 08, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the To the Moon exploit?

The To the Moon 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.

To the Moon Hack

TOTAL LOST $107K

Low Nov 08, 2023 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1507 By amount stolen

Protocol Type CEX Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

To the Moon token experienced a rugpull exit scam on Nov 08, 2023, resulting in a loss of 107,464 USD for investors.

Details of the Exploit

To the Moon (TTM) is a BEP20 token trading on PancakeSwap. The scammer, who was also the initial liquidity provider, drained the liquidity from the PancakeSwap pool in four separate transactions. The total drained amount equaled 291,504 USDT, with the scammer profiting 107,464 USDT.

The scammer had initially added 184,040 USDT and 500,000,000 TTM tokens to the pool. The stolen funds were transferred to the SwapTreasury contract, which was deployed by the same deployer as the TTM token contract.

Block Data Reference

Deployer Address:

https://bscscan.com/address/0x03331Ef6…eE582b

Scammer Address:

https://bscscan.com/address/0x2a0711c2…743de0

Swap Treasury Contract:

https://bscscan.com/address/0x5c1f8486…2f2cce

Liquidity Adding Transaction:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x50d336f2…30f972

Liquidity Removal Transactions:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x3f60dd18…c979e5

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x4fd7cb4a…619270

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x78ea3f8e…039187

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x2c6163f0…94a966

Funds Transfer Transaction:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x29e0c0a3…2d2610

Incident Report

Protocol / Project To the Moon

Date of Incident November 08, 2023

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type CEX

Affected Token TTM

Official Website tothemoon.com

Protocol Twitter/X @2TheMoon_global

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 To the Moon'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 To the Moon, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (November 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/CertiKAlert/status/1722233200968359961?s=20

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2023

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