User Hack

TOTAL LOST $196K
Low Phishing

Summarize with AI

ChatGPT Perplexity Claude Grok
Affected Chain 2024 Incident surface
Recovered - No recovery reported
All-Time Rank #1310 By amount stolen
Protocol Type Algo-Stables Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

The user on Ethereum chain suffered a phishing scam, losing 73.85 wstETH worth approximately $195,887 USD.

Details of the Exploit

On February 4, 2024, a user fell victim to a phishing scam. The victim signed an "Increase Allowance" transaction, which allowed the attacker to steal 73.85 wstETH (worth around $195,887 USD) from the wallet. The attacker first stole 18.46 wstETH and then, almost immediately, another 55.39 wstETH.

Most of the stolen funds were exchanged for ETH and still remain in one of the attacker's addresses as of February 7, 2024.

Block Data Reference

Attacker's Addresses:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x63605E53…C44A51

https://etherscan.io/address/0x9fA7bB75…f2C726

Increase Allowance Transaction

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x31c68652…70b4ff

Malicious Transactions:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x58793d06…4c95da

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x254cfade…bf279c

Funds Holder as of Feb 7, 2024:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x888A44b1…3EBa20

This is classified as a Phishing Attacks . Compare similar hacks →

Incident Report

Protocol / Project User
Date of Incident
Attack Technique Phishing
Classification Other
Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Algo-Stables
Official Website usde.co/
Protocol Twitter/X @USDEofficial
Team Anonymous
Source Code Unverified

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories
Mineable
Protocol Links
GitHub Discord

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 phishing 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 User's contract logic - root cause: other
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? Likely — with a thorough Phishing audit checklist and test coverage

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to User, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (February 2024).

  • Verify all logic paths related to Phishing are guarded by proper access controls and input validation - see the Phishing Attacks attack class for patterns
  • 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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Related Attack Classes

The technique used in this hack maps to these vulnerability classes in our security curriculum:

See all Phishing Attacks examples →

Phishing Attacks

Sources & References

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