How much was lost in the VPANDAO DAO hack?

The VPANDAO DAO hack resulted in $869K in losses on June 16, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the VPANDAO DAO exploit?

The VPANDAO DAO 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.

VPANDAO DAO Hack

TOTAL LOST $869K

Low Jun 16, 2023 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #864 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

VPANDA DAO project was rugpulled by team-related EOA, leading to a loss of 869,463 $USD.

Details of the Exploit

VPANDA DAO, a BEP20 token project on Binance Smart Chain, underwent an exit scam by a mysterious exploiter. The scam began when the deployer of the token moved a large number of VPANDA tokens to a special contract named VpandaBank. The owner of this contract was then changed to another EOA, the alleged scammer.

VpandaBank had a privileged function that allowed the owner to withdraw any number of VPANDA tokens. This function, named 'withdraw', was exploited by the scammer to transfer a significant amount of VPANDA tokens to themselves. They then drained the liquidity from the PancakePool. In the end, the drained funds were transferred to yet another EOA address.

The total funds lost resulted in 869,463 $USD.

Block Data Reference

Deployer Address:

https://bscscan.com/address/0xa5307fc8…20EE2A

Scammer Address:

https://bscscan.com/address/0xea7ba48a…e821bf

Funds Holder Address:

https://bscscan.com/address/0x33D2a493…6eaF65

Liquidity Drain Transaction:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0xe0b89f37…23a2da

Funds Transfer Transaction:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x839bc7a9…18539a

Incident Report

Protocol / Project VPANDAO DAO

Date of Incident June 16, 2023

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull

Affected Token VPANDA

Official Website www.pandadao.info/

Protocol Twitter/X @VPandaCommunity

Team Anonymous

Source Code Verified On-Chain

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories

Ethereum Ecosystem

Protocol Links

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 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 VPANDAO DAO'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 VPANDAO DAO, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (June 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/1669818410446868481?s=20

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2023

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