How much was lost in the UniCat.farm hack?

The UniCat.farm hack resulted in $713K in losses on September 24, 2020.

What attack technique was used in the UniCat.farm exploit?

The UniCat.farm 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.

UniCat.farm Hack

TOTAL LOST $713K

Low Sep 24, 2020 Rugpull ethereum

Affected Chain ethereum Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #917 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull Target category

Incident Overview

Function setGovernance() was executed 8 times on the farm contract which allowed the external wallet to withdraw staked tokens:

https://bloxy.info/txs/calls_from/0x3b01feb6…8af8b0?signature_id=1270634&smart_contract_address_bin=0xb246bcd5…8e42cd

Then liquidity was removed:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x3d9df9fb…bb6644

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x8e54ed37…d9cab1

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x98172882…0a918f

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x94addda7…62f896

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x0f59d547…dd8a3d

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x52bf0897…fb7222

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x0f51d522…b56ca0

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xbb5a3a13…8d8a3e

Stolen funds were mixed with others in the long chain of transactions. But the last ones used Tornado Cash:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xcf5292ba…805f44

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x3d5b4f7c…f7467e

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xac32ddd5…763962

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x599f44a3…0efa0b

Incident Report

Protocol / Project UniCat.farm

Date of Incident September 24, 2020

Affected Chain(s) ethereum

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Exchange (DEX)

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull

Affected Token MEOW

Official Website unicat.farm/

Protocol Twitter/X @unicatFarm

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 UniCat.farm's contract logic - root cause: exchange (dex)

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 UniCat.farm, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (September 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/amanusk_/status/1313070969699868672
02
de.fi Analysis https://t.me/defiyield_ann/69
03
Web Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20200921225451/http://unicat.farm/

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Exchange (DEX)
Year 2020

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