How much was lost in the Twerk Finance hack?

The Twerk Finance hack resulted in $13K in losses on December 03, 2020.

What attack technique was used in the Twerk Finance exploit?

The Twerk Finance 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.

Twerk Finance Hack

TOTAL LOST $13K

Low Dec 03, 2020 Rugpull ethereum

Affected Chain ethereum Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1922 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Dexs Target category

Incident Overview

The contract deployer added initial liquidity at:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x94137e3f…3ab50f

The contract deployer sold tokens multiple times at:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xe384bc46…d59038

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xe63ec6c7…59d6ea

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x55cdd544…8e0eaf

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x769ca39b…096ed1

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x8e1583aa…01bed5

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x25e09747…a851d3

In addition, the contract deployer invoked mint() to generate new tokens onto his wallet:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x4e1fd1df…dfdf54

The minted tokens were sold at:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x25e09747…a851d3

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Twerk Finance

Date of Incident December 03, 2020

Affected Chain(s) ethereum

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Dexs

Affected Token TWERK

Official Website twerk.finance/

Protocol Twitter/X @wolf_protocol

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 ethereum smart contracts and deploy a custom exploit contract

Protocol Analysis Identification of the exploitable vulnerability in Twerk Finance'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 Twerk Finance, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (December 2020).

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/WARONRUGS/status/1334445353307934722

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2020

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