How much was lost in the WSB Coin hack?

The WSB Coin hack resulted in $635K in losses on May 04, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the WSB Coin exploit?

The WSB Coin 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.

WSB Coin Hack

TOTAL LOST $635K

Low May 04, 2023 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #947 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

On the 4th of May WSB Coin (WSB) on the Ethereum main net was rugged for approx 635k USD.

Details of the Exploit

The team was responsible for managing tokens in the WSB protocol executed a token dumping scam, causing the project significant losses. One of the team addresses received a substantial amount of tokens by calling the claimWSBModeratorsAllocation() function and sold off the tokens, leading to a sharp drop of around 90% in its initial price.

Block Data Reference

claimWSBModeratorsAllocation call:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xef1b6db5…f615b3

Sale example txs:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x0075880c…a4d7eb

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x5f79dbd0…2c56b8

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xe6d7f1e7…057a7e

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x1289072f…3648ec

Scammer address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x0ae042d2…fe7894

Incident Report

Protocol / Project WSB Coin

Date of Incident May 04, 2023

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem #1 View Post-Mortem #2

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull

Affected Token WSB

Official Website wsbcoin.org/

Protocol Twitter/X @WSBCoinOfficial

Team Anonymous

Source Code Unverified

Market Context at Time of Hack

Protocol Links

GitHub Telegram

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 WSB Coin'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 WSB Coin, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (May 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/PeckShieldAlert/status/1653950338926522370?s=20
02
Source 2 https://twitter.com/zachxbt/status/1653937194388664322?s=20
03
Web Archive https://archive.ph/Wdcco

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2023

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