How much was lost in the TSUKA hack?

The TSUKA hack resulted in $71K in losses on September 15, 2022.

What attack technique was used in the TSUKA exploit?

The TSUKA 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.

TSUKA Hack

TOTAL LOST $71K

Low Sep 15, 2022 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2022 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1630 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

TSUKA token was rug pulled by the token deployer. The total profit of the scammer is 70,755 $USD

Details of the Exploit

TSUKA is a copycat BEP20 token and is not to be confused with Dejitaru Tsuka which has the same token name. The token deployer added liquidity on PancakeSwap for 55 $WBNB and 500,000 $TSUKA tokens. Within an hour after trading started, the scammer sold 100,100,100,100,100,000,000 $TSUKA for 320 $WBNB and dropped the token price by more than 99%

Block Data Reference

Attacker address:

https://bscscan.com/address/0xf9ddbfdb…a7e158

Liquidity Pool:

https://bscscan.com/address/0x3f024015…1d77ec

Drain transaction:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x950446e1…d87f47

Incident Report

Protocol / Project TSUKA

Date of Incident September 15, 2022

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull

Affected Token TSUKA

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 TSUKA'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 TSUKA, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (September 2022).

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/1570622611331112960

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2022

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