How much was lost in the Towelie hack?

The Towelie hack resulted in $89K in losses on August 23, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the Towelie exploit?

The Towelie 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.

Towelie Hack

TOTAL LOST $89K

Low Aug 23, 2023 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1569 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

Towelie (TOWELIE) token project was rugpulled by the deployer, removing liquidity worth 88,861 USD from the UniSwap pool, causing a loss of 54.72 ETH.

Details of the Exploit

Towelie is an ERC20 token trading on UniSwap. On Aug 23, 2023, the deployer removed liquidity from the LP pool, resulting in an exit scam. The stolen funds were transferred to another EOA address and then distributed between multiple addresses.

Half of the stolen funds were transferred to ChangeNow, a quarter to Binance, and a quarter were left on different EOA addresses. The total loss from this exit scam is 88,861 USD, equivalent to 54.72 ETH.

Block Data Reference

Deployer Address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x9FAc5E13…C45488

Scammer Address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x6b883c49…B445D3

Funds Holder Address as of September 4, 2023:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x55f03F60…AD9071

Liquidity Removal Transaction:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x007aef7e…44537f

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Towelie

Date of Incident August 23, 2023

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull

Affected Token TOWELIE

Protocol Twitter/X @CoinTwelve

Team Anonymous

Source Code Verified On-Chain

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories

Mineable

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 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 Towelie'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 Towelie, 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.

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Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://twitter.com/CertiKAlert/status/1694294536762093950?s=20

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2023

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